


10s Across The Board

by Poppedthep



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Distressing Themes, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dystopia, Fluff? Sure it's me, Long, Lots of talk about death and killing and not wanting to die, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poppedthep/pseuds/Poppedthep
Summary: It’s all just a show. So them Gamemakers can’t let him die if the audience don’t want him killed. Right?A Hunger Games AU.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo
Comments: 46
Kudos: 57





	1. Jose

**Author's Note:**

> Tried to write and this came out. Maybe it will be cathartic to share it! Hope you are doing okay in these strange times. ❤️
> 
> Some of the Hunger Games details might be inaccurate! Been a long time since I read it and I don’t have the inclination to fully fact check. If anything’s off let’s call it artistic license. 
> 
> Content warning for canon-typical graphic violence and distressing themes from the Hunger Games (a dystopia about kids being forced to kill each other and controlled by a dictatorial ruler if anyone doesn’t know it! Although if you don’t know HG, this fic may make a limited amount of sense.)
> 
> Other warnings: brief painful (but consensual) sex, one offensive disability-related slur, very wordy, not as edited as it probably should be, and slightly distressing end. But it IS me so if you can handle canon Hunger Games, it’s probably softer than that. 
> 
> Hopefully goes without saying that some opinions expressed in this do not represent mine or any sane human. Don't be inspired by any rationalizations you may read for horrific things. 
> 
> These characters are so many levels of fictional.

When he’s called as tribute he takes a deep breath, pushes the sick feeling down, and struts up to the stage like it was meant to happen, like this was exactly what he wanted. 

He winks and grins at his mom, crying in the crowd, being held back by his brothers, who are crying too. 

He clenches his fists so nobody sees his hands are shaking and smiles so wide he shows all his teeth.

He does his best to make Miss Effie laugh when he answers her questions, looking right down the lens of the TV camera pointed at him.

“I see y’all watching at home already doing me dirty, thinkin you ain’t gotta pay attention. Think I’ma be an easy out ‘cause I’m from a cute lil poor District, ain’t had no opportunities to get all jacked up and trained like some of these Career hos. All this, that and the third. But you know sometimes the turtle can win the race.” 

They start moving the microphone away from him and he grabs it back.

“Nuh uh, I ain’t finished! Y’all speedy bunnies out there feeling yourselves from the other Districts, thinkin you the hot shit in Panem better watch out. Y’all, don’t  _ sleep _ on the turtle!”

Miss Effie’s eyes light up and she focuses completely on him, ignoring poor Delly Cartwright sniffling next to him. 

“How wonderful to see such gumption from a District 12 competitor! May the odds be ever in your favor!”

“Baby I don’t need no odds, I got that raw talent. Y’all listening? You done good picking me to be on TV. I got shit to say. Get ready for the Jose experience. Remember my name, baby. I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming…” he keeps yelling into the microphone as they escort him off, walking backwards off the stage to get as much time on the camera as he can. 

Jose might not be much good at his classes in school but he’s real good with people. He always has been. 

He might be too loud and get called crazy a lotta the time but he understands how to make a conversation go his way, how to make people like him, instinctively, like his mom knows which herbs make people better. 

That’s why when he’s up to his shenanigans ‘cause he’s tryna find food to eat everybody just calls him crazy Jose and he don’t get in real trouble. He got caught coming back through the fence by a Peacekeeper once and managed to talk his way out with just a warning.

He’s watched the Hunger Games since he was born, like everybody. He knows what makes people like a tribute. He followed his favorites, fascinated, looking up to them. Studied them, without knowing it. 

His first crush was Finnick Odair. He went to the town square hours early to be in the front row for his Victory Tour. Watched in awe, not sure if he wanted to kiss him or  _ be _ him. 

He don’t get Math or History of Coal or how to sit still but he gets people. 

To have any chance of coming outta this shitshow alive he knows he gotta make everybody  _ love _ him. 

He’s gonna try his best. Working with what he got, which so far is whatever cute answers he can make up when they ask him questions. 

He  _ really _ wants to keep living. He ain’t even half way getting started with the greatness that’s gonna be his life.

His momma cries and cries when they get their time in the Justice Building, hugging him so tight, telling him how much she loves him, believes in him, how he’s amazing, he can do anything. 

“I know I can, ma. I will,” he says, trying not to cry too much and make her more upset. 

“At least my baby will look beautiful on the big screen,” she brushes the curl of his hair away from his eyes. The way she keeps sobbing sounds like she don’t believe what she’s telling him about his chances. 

He almost feels worse for her than for himself. His name was only in five times. His momma never let him or his brothers take out tessarae. She smacked them if they even suggested it. She said they were too precious to her.

“Ma don’t cry, I’ma do real good. I promise.”

“The higher power has a plan for you baby. We gotta trust it.”

“Trust  _ me _ , ma. I’ma make you proud,” he swears, breathing in her perfume one last time. 

He believes himself. He has to. If you don’t believe in yourself you ain’t gettin nowhere. Rule one. 

Someone gotta win this year. Why shouldn’t it be him? He ain’t giving up on trying ‘til he takes his last breath. 

It’s all just a show. So them Gamemakers can’t let him die if the audience don’t want him killed, right?

He gotta make sure they don’t. He gotta be the most popular kid on the show. 

It’s his best chance. He ain’t got many survival skills other than archery and knowing which plants and shit to eat from beyond the fence to keep from starving. He ain’t scared of a fight but he don’t bring much to one other than unrestrained grit. 

He always knew he was meant for more fabulous things than the Seam and the mines. He used to look at glamorous folks in the Capitol on the big screen in the square and imagine being one of them. 

He just didn’t think it would be like this. 

But if these are his cards, he gotta play his hand the best he can.

Personality. Charm. Charisma. Fierceness. He serves it all, from the minute he steps on the train. 

He cries when he’s finally alone in his cabin that first night. He cries his eyes out, gets his pillow all wet, ‘cause he ain’t stupid, he’s terrified. They watched the other reapings at dinner and half the tributes look fierce, ready to win. He wants to believe he can compete, he can do anything, but when he’s by himself in the dark he lets himself be scared. 

When it’s morning again and they’re speeding into the big shiny city with everybody looking, he does his best to be someone they all gonna wanna pay attention to. 

As the train speeds past, people are already cheering for him, chanting his name. He beams and waves at them so vigorously it feels like his arm gonna fall off. 

He loves seeing all the Capitol people with their cool haircuts and exciting clothes and shiny things hanging from their ears and noses. He wants to be one of them. He wishes he was standing on the platform wearing cool shit and waving instead of the poor kid on the train. The exciting city full of interesting people feels like home in a way District 12 never has.

He feels the other tributes start watching him as soon as he arrives, as it becomes clear he’s drawing a lot of attention. 

He starts  _ trending _ from the bullshit he said off the top of his head back in District 12. Miss Effie has to explain to him what it means. She’s real excited about it. He struggles to keep up with what she says ‘cause it sounds crazy but it’s apparently true. 

Haymitch shows him the news coverage, the people wearing t-shirts of his face, jewelry with his name on, getting his name cut into their hair, tattooed on their skin. Celebrities on different TV shows do impressions of him saying “I’m coming” walking backwards off the stage and everyone laughs and claps like it’s the funniest shit they ever saw.

Haymitch tells him the sponsors are lining up to help him already, and he ain’t even got near the arena. Ain’t even got scores from the judges. It’s unheard of. 

He’s a national sweetheart, Miss Effie says. Like they ain’t never had before from District 12. 

Jose wonders why Haymitch don’t look as happy about it as Miss Effie. 

He feels the other tributes watching when the crowd screams for him at the Opening Ceremony. He wears the fuck out of Cinna’s concept, feeling rightness sparkle in his bones on top of all this crazy shit because he suddenly  _ knows _ he was born to turn fierce looks, he just ain’t had the chance yet. 

The other tributes gossip about him when he gets trending again from entering the Opening Ceremony procession backwards, and taking longer than anyone to arrive because he keeps hopping off the chariot to go talk to people in the crowd and give hugs to the cute Capitol kids wearing t shirts of him. 

They watch when he struts into the Training Center like he owns the place, and when he draws back his bow and lets the arrow fly with a flourish. 

He’s real good at archery, and real  _ real _ good at acting like he’s the shit.

The tall blonde tribute from District 1 stares at him the most. From across the room with the Careers. All curly and considering. Sizing him up with those striking blue eyes all smouldery and smug like he think he some kinda assassin supermodel. 

Let him watch. 

He mighta been training for this his whole life but he  _ wishes _ he had what Jose got.

Jose watches him right back. 

The boy ties perfect knots, makes undetectable camouflage and is fierce and deadly with a sword, swinging it around like a dance. He’s big and strong and the muscles in his back ripple when he moves. He glides around the Training Center unbothered like he some sorta Prince. He can’t be older than 18 but he’s already starting to look like a  _ man _ .

Jose gotta make himself stop looking when he realizes he’s watching him  _ too _ much.


	2. Brock

Sneaking out of his room and knocking the District 12 male tribute’s door after the first day of training is probably the stupidest thing Brock’s ever done. 

But he can tell. 

That guy likes boys the way he likes boys. The way he’s never told anyone he likes boys. He can just see it in the way he acts, the way he moves. The way he keeps darting little glances at him across the gymnasium when he thinks Brock isn’t looking.

And this is it. His last and only chance to do anything about liking anyone. 

Brock has no dumb notions about love or crushes. There’s no use for them in the world they live in. 

He wants to win. _Loves_ to win. 

It’s what he’s been training for his entire life. 

But he’s also a practical person. There’s a very good chance he might die in the next couple days. 

He doesn’t want to die without kissing a boy first. At least once, so he can say he’s done it. 

The fact that there just happens to be an extremely cute boy who keeps drawing attention to himself so Brock can’t stop noticing him, who keeps looking at him any time he flexes, who is right there a couple floors above him for the taking, is too good to pass up. 

So instead of lying awake stressing about his performance like usual, he goes up there and he knocks. 

The boy opens the door frowning. 

Brock tries to make himself look less intimidating, which is hard when you’ve spent your whole life trying to look _more_ intimidating.

“Hi,” he says, letting his voice be dangerously soft. 

He usually tries not to speak much. When he does he forces his voice harder than it naturally is. His voice can give him away if he’s not careful. Thankfully he has resting bitch face, so everyone assumes he’s threatening rather than shy, but his voice could make him look weak. 

But it’s okay to lower his defenses to lure the District 12 boy in. It’s just the two of them, and he won’t live long enough to tell anyone. 

The boy’s frown gets deeper, suspicious, like he can see right through Brock.

“What you doin’ up here?” He clicks his tongue. “You know you ain’t allowed to kill me ‘til we in that arena, bitch.”

Fuck, he’s even cuter up close, curious and sassy, head tilted, expression open. He can see why the public is going crazy over him. 

He doesn’t want to get jealous and annoyed about that now. The competition starts again in the morning. Now he’s just a boy. A handsome boy.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

“ _What_?”

“I can tell you like boys. Do you like me?”

“What you--” his eyes are wide, stunned, thrown. Looking at Brock suspiciously like this might be a trick, which is fair. People like him would never usually pay attention to someone from District 12. 

But there’s never been anyone from District 12 like him.

“I saw you looking at me today.”

Brock is already backing him into the room, advancing on his prey. 

“I like _you_. I think you’re very cute.”

He holds him by the hips without asking. Leans in close. 

The boy’s eyes go dark looking up at him and his breath catches and Brock knows he has him. 

He leans down to touch their lips together and the rush of it feels even better than a kill. 


	3. Jose

“This doesn’t mean I’m going easy on you,” Mr Tall Sexy and Aggressive says, wiping his mouth, pleased with himself, as he looks up at Jose from his knees. 

Jose is still catching his breath, staring at him, legs all shaky. One hand is stuck sweaty in his soft curly hair, the other on his strong shoulder, unclenching from hanging on for dear life. 

He never did _that_ with a boy in the Seam.

He half thinks he mighta passed out and dreamt it after thinking about how hot he looked swinging his sword around in the gymnasium today. 

But his imagination ain’t good enough to invent that mouth, wrapped sloppy around him like that, lapping at him eagerly, swallowing him down, hands squeezing his ass tight, fingertips brushing the crease between his cheeks curiously, soft kisses all over his hips. It was like nothing he ever felt before. 

He was embarrassed when the boy pulled down his pants and he had a boner from kissing him. But the boy pushed his hands away when he tried to hide it and just got on his knees. The sight of this gorgeous boy enthusiastically sucking on his hard on like it's his favorite thing he ever done is something Jose is gonna remember the rest of his life. Even if that's only a couple more days. 

The boy smoulders up at him, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. He like a sexy force of nature.

He runs his hands up Jose’s legs, squeezing, and pulls his pants up for him with a coy wink. 

He frowns as he buttons them with surprising care but when he looks up and meets Jose’s eyes, his gaze is ice cold.

“Just so we're clear, this was completely separate from us as tributes. This is a competition.” 

“Right,” Jose finds his voice, pushes through when it cracks. “We both came with our own dream.”

The District 1 boy stands up, brushing himself off. 

“Exactly. If I catch you in there, I’ll kill you like anybody else. Just so you know.”

Jose sees a little flash of unease across his expression right after he says it. But the boy notices him watching and his gaze goes steely and shut off. 

“And if I get you and get hated by your _fans_ , so be it.”

“Right,” Jose looks at him skeptically. 

He ain’t got _fans_ like all that. Some people thought the fuckshit he said off the top of his head was funny, that’s all. It’s wild to see. It’s encouraging. But it ain’t enough to save him. Not yet. 

“Just wanted to make sure that we’re on the same page.”

“Sure,” Jose shrugs, pretending he don’t care even though he can still taste him in his mouth. 

He craves the brush of his tongue against his again, a faint desperation screaming in the back of his mind. 

Shit.

He always gets like this over boys. All hopeless romantic the second he starts to like someone. He’s useless with a crush at the best of times and this really ain’t the best.

He really needs to not start crushing on the hot District 1 boy who’s kissing him tonight but in a couple days will definitely, definitely kill him. 

He always falls for boys who don’t treat him right but that would be a whole new level of fucked up.

“You do your best, I’ll do my best, right?” He says, as mature and distant as he can. 

“Good,” the boy nods, “Glad we understand each other,” though he looks less sure of himself than when he shoved his way in and pounced on him like some type a sexy snow leopard. That feels like a little win. 

They look at each other, kinda awkward now. Jose shrugs and pouts his lips for another kiss. Might as well enjoy himself before the fuckshit really gets started. 

The boy flashes a smile and leans in to kiss him lightly. 

Jose pulls him closer and the guy goes with him like water, flowing easily into his space, accepting when Jose gets over-enthusiastic with his kisses and giving them back just as good. In the gymnasium he wears sweats to train and often takes his top off leaving his chest bare. Jose knows, he's been looking. His casual wear tonight is a sweater made of the softest fabric Jose has ever felt, white as pure snow, hanging off him all cosy like a blanket. It's probably worth more than Jose could imagine. He even smells expensive. 

Jose fumbles for the boy’s pants button. He can feel the shape of him getting hard between their bodies and he wants to see it. Wants it in his hand, in his mouth, wants to try for himself what the boy just did to him to see if he can do it that good. 

It’s kinda freeing that it don’t even matter if he does it bad, since he’d never tell no one about this and they probably both gonna die soon anyway. 

When his hand brushes curiously over the bulge, Mr Tall Sexy and Aggressive jumps back, pushing him away.

“Um, no. Don’t-- Stop it. I’m going to bed now.”

He backs away and out the door real fast. Even though he don’t look tired and Jose can see the outline of it still hard against his leg. 


	4. Brock

“Are you good at anything besides archery?” Brock asks the next night. 

“Why? If you spying on me, you a shit spy, baby, you ain’t supposed to straight up ask stuff,” he stretches, his usual growl is lazy and warm with amusement. Apparently _he_ doesn’t care about sounding soft in front of his competition. 

Brock bites his cheek to hold back the laugh that bubbles up. Giggling like a little girl at everything he says would _not_ be good for his intimidating image.

He probably shouldn’t even have come back. But he did. 

Jose let him in with a raised eyebrow but no questions. 

Jose. They exchanged names tonight. 

Not to be sentimental. Just for practicality. It’s weird to call him “hey, you” when he’s sucking his dick.

He’s pretty sure they’re on the same page about it meaning nothing beyond this room. 

He ignored Jose all day at training and Jose didn’t try to speak to him or even act like he noticed. 

He felt him looking. But he’d already been looking. He didn’t look any _more_. 

Brock didn’t think anyone would notice it if they hadn’t been looking back themselves, like he had.

“As if I care enough to spy on you,” Brock scoffs, and he’s surprised when Jose beams at him like they’re having fun. 

“Shady,” he winks. “Don’t care ‘bout you either.”

He didn’t know people outside of the Careers shared his shady sense of humor.

They’re curled around each other on the bed and can’t stop kissing. They both came, so Brock is just lingering now. There’s no reason to stay really. Except the kissing is nice. Jose gasps against his mouth and it feels like they're sharing the same breaths. He keeps letting his lips drift away from Jose's over his jaw and neck because the way he reacts makes the hairs on Brock's arms stand on end. 

Brock hikes Jose’s leg up over his hip, kneading the soft cheek of his ass and Jose purrs. He thinks he could kiss Jose for years and never get bored. He wishes he hadn’t left it until now to start kissing boys. What a waste. 

They’ve been talking a little tonight. Nothing serious. Flippant comments about how they’re finding training. Tossing a little shade back and forth. Some jokes. 

Jose is funny. Really funny. Eventually the inside of Brock’s cheek is chewed raw and he gives in and just laughs at him when he’s being funny. 

It’s nice to let his guard down and laugh without having to think about how it makes him look, to talk to someone without having to impress. 

The inherent intimacy of what they’re doing creates an unspoken rule that they can relax a little around each other, as long as it doesn’t leave the room. 

Brock didn’t want to relax at all at first. He was raised not to show weakness. Never. 

Then an hour or so ago when Jose’s sure little hands started rubbing him over his pants, he decided his conditioning can go fuck itself for tonight. He doesn’t care anymore. For all his best efforts, he could be dead soon, and he’s worked so hard. He deserves this. 

So he let Jose unbutton his pants and stroke him hard and suck him. 

At first all he could think was that Jose could have a knife up his sleeve from dinner. If he wanted to eliminate Brock to improve his chances he’d just have to slip it out while Brock was distracted. If he couldn’t get hold of a knife he could even just wait until Brock let his guard down and bite his dick off the second he got his mouth around it, leave Brock to bleed out in the corner of the room and go get his beauty sleep. 

At first Brock couldn’t even close his eyes, watching every curious little move Jose made like a hawk, his muscles tense, his dick softening in Jose’s mouth. 

Then Jose slapped his ass and said, 

“Relax. I ain’t so good at sucking dick it’ll kill you. Not yet,” his dark eyes twinkling up at him. 

Brock smiled in spite of himself and his body obeyed, relaxing, deciding to take orders from Jose without his consent. 

It was weird. He can’t remember the last time he could just-- be with someone, without running though the ways they might try to kill him. 

Even his friends. It’s just something you learn when you grow up at The Academy.

“You said it yourself. What goes down in here, stays here. Right?”

“Yeah,” Brock had said, softer than he meant to, but then Jose was sucking again and soon he couldn’t think about anything. Soon he was coming down a boy’s throat and it was wonderful and made him wish he had more time to do this.

Jose is smart. He gets it. He was the right choice to do this with. 

Not that there were other options. _Maybe_ the guy from District 8 but he couldn’t tell for sure and besides he was much less _inspiring_. He really lucked out with Jose being cute.

Brock doesn’t know why he came back here tonight at all. Except that it felt so good last night, why shouldn’t he, with everything that’s coming, snatch a little fun while he can?

Jose’s hands are linked behind his neck as they kiss lazily on the bed. 

“What you mean then?” Jose squirms against him when Brock’s hands skate up from his ass along his torso, inspecting the muscle tone. “Why you askin what I’m good at?”

Brock saw him with a bow and arrow in training. He was good. Very good. Better than Glimmer, though Brock would never say that to her face.

He’s obviously no stranger to hard work. He doesn’t complain about the exercises they do like some of the weaker tributes and he looks like he might be pretty strong considering how small he is. Brock feels lean, firm muscles under his fingers and the tiniest bit of baby fat. 

If what people say about District 12 is true he must be either a good hunter, a smart tradesperson or some kind of edible plant expert to have managed to get a little chubby. 

He’s one of the fastest in their group, after Brock and the other Careers. 

He’s light on his feet. He could probably climb as well as a girl.

But there’s nothing about him Brock couldn’t wrestle into submission before running through with his sword. 

It’s not enough.

Not enough to save him--

Brock doesn’t want to examine the thought too closely but he decided while watching him pull stupid faces to make his weepy District partner smile at lunch that he wouldn’t be comfortable killing Jose right away in the bloodbath. 

Not because he’s soft or anything. 

Brock can separate sentimentality from the performance he has to give. 

It just doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t want to get in his head about it and falter in a crucial moment, making himself look weak. 

So if he doesn’t need to die right away, Jose should join his alliance. It makes sense.

They’ll all turn on each other in the end anyway, they’re all there to win. But before that it could be-- nice --to have him around. 

He’s insanely popular. He likely has useful hunting skills, with a bow and who knows what else. He’s better company than Cato and the girls, who are boring and predictable so far. 

Brock needs to convince the other Careers to let Jose in the alliance. He just doesn’t know how to make it happen. 

Jose’s popularity makes them suspicious of him, and he’s from District 12, which everybody knows is usually useless. The way he acts all cocky and loud and pleased with himself makes the others think he’s an idiot. Brock thought it too until he spoke to him. His Career allies gossip about Jose like he’s a joke, even though Brock can tell they’re as jealous of his charm and popularity as he is. 

Brock criticized him along with them today to protect his secret. But it’s getting harder to be convincing when his face starts to betray him by smiling when he even thinks Jose’s name.

At least no one expects him to say much because he usually doesn’t. 

He suggests allying with him to Clove first, because she’ll be the hardest to convince, Cato will listen to her, Glimmer will listen to anyone, and the others aren’t strong enough to have any sway over what the group does.

He tries to make it sound casual, like he’s just having the idea as they watch him at a station setting complicated traps surprisingly capably since he knows Jose hasn’t had the training they have. His District partner fumbles the trap she's trying to set and Jose nudges her and laughs, "You gotta pick a struggle. You can't struggle at everything, girl!"

Brock swallows his smile and suggests it to Clove.

Clove scoffs, like he’s making a great joke. 

He needs a stronger argument. 

Drawing so much attention from the audience is a smart move in some ways but it’s put a big target on Jose’s back. And all that talking isn’t going to get him very far in the arena itself, no matter how much it makes Brock smile privately.

“Can you use any other weapons? Like, well?” Brock brushes a kiss on his shoulder and keeps kissing his neck while he answers, lost in his skin. 

“Could probly do okay with a pick or a axe. Maybe a knife. Why you asking? Tell me,” he whines and then, “Mmm,” sighs, distracted, when Brock sucks gently on one spot. His reaction feels more thrilling than cutting down five people. 

It’s heady to be able to distract him so thoroughly with so little effort, but he’s almost mad at him for being so trusting and forthcoming. Someone with worse intentions than Brock could easily take advantage of him if he lets his mouth run like this over a few distracting kisses.

“Real fast if I wanna be,” he murmurs, dazed, as Brock sucks. “Can dodge and climb and shit. I ain’t afraid of a fight. Chil’ I’ll come for any fool who gets me riled up. I'm real scrappy. If there’s a bow you already know I’ma slay. And you know they gonna gimme one. They know I want one and you seen how they talkin about me.”

He has. Brock has never seen anything like it. 

He’s jealous but it mostly makes him relieved. It’s not just him Jose has this effect on. The whole of Panem is crazy for him over his cute comments.

“Don’t tell anyone else this, okay?” Brock lifts his head from the crook of his neck and looks at him seriously. “I won’t tell anyone but don’t say this kind of stuff to anyone who's not me.”

He isn’t being _nice_. He’s protecting his best source of entertainment here. It’s a completely selfish act. 


	5. Jose

“They said okay. You’re in,” Brock approaches him at lunch the next day, gesturing excitedly at his table across the cafeteria where the Careers sit watching them, looking like a bunch a slapped asses.

“What you talking about?” Jose hugs his tray to himself like a shield, freaked out and wary of Brock approaching him openly in front of people.

“You’re joining our alliance. I persuaded them for you,” Brock’s eyes are bright and expectant, like he’s waiting for a thank you.

Jose looks at them watching him like sharks.

“I don’t trust them.”

His innate social sense that’s always led him right gets a real nasty vibe from that table. 

“Do you trust me?” Brock blinks all hopeful. 

A day ago he woulda said no. He really wants to but he don’t. But he really wants to. 

“I ain't stupid. You said yourself you gonna kill me.”

“Right,” Brock nods solemnly. “But not until I have to. To win,” he finishes, sincere and soft, like he’s saying something sweet. 

The boy is real fucked up in some deep and serious ways but he’s also looking at Jose like it really matters to him. 

And he's real fucking nice to look at. That cute-ass face is gonna be the death of him. Maybe literally.

He makes Jose’s heart beat like crazy in his chest. He wishes he didn’t but he does.

Jose ain’t never been good when it comes to making smart decisions about boys. 

If he gonna die soon anyway there’s worse ways to go. 

There’s a problem though.

“What about Delly?”

“Who?” Brock squints at him.

“Bitch, who you think?” He rolls his eyes over at his District partner sat alone darting worried looks at them.

She might not be competition to Brock but he ain’t gotta be _rude_.

Jose has tried not to get too attached to the soft distressed girl he knows vaguely from gym class and the school bake sale and the dance team because he don’t wanna die and that means she gotta. 

But he ain’t a cold hearted person. She sweet and nice to everybody, she don’t deserve to be all alone for this. They been eating lunch together and she follows him around all the work stations like a nervous shadow. If he ever gets the chance to again he wouldn’t be able to look his ma in the eye if he turned against his own district mate for an alliance with a bunch of Careers. He’s loyal. Whether he wins or dies what he wants more than anything is to do everyone back home proud.

“I can’t leave her on her own. They gonna let her join too?”

Brock looks like he could kill him right then, fuck an arena. He backs Jose into a corner.

“Don’t be insane. It was hard enough getting them to say yes to _you_ and you’re actually _valuable_. She’s weak and scared. No way will they let her tag along slowing us down and adding nothing.”

“Then I ain’t either. I ain’t leaving her.” 

Brock huffs at him, frustrated, like it suddenly matters to him what Jose does when he’s not sucking his dick.

Jose don’t like the thought of leaving Brock neither though. 

Not after two nights of having him in his bed. Not after him bounding over all eager with his plan to help him into an alliance that could keep him alive longer, like they BFFs or something now. 

He swears he can still smell him on his skin, even after that fancy ass shower. Can still taste his salty bitterness that hit the back of his mouth. 

He kissed a couple boys behind the Hob in District 12, but it never felt like the things he does with Brock. The way he feels when Brock even looks at him. He feels all hot and proud from the way Brock called him _valuable_. 

They make the boys _right_ in District 1. Brock looks kinda like that cute merchant boy all the girls in school got crushes on, Peeta, but hot. Nobody in his District is as sexy as Brock.

“If you pressed about getting a side ‘a these cookies in the arena you know you could always leave them,” he jerks his head at the Careers. “Make a new alliance. Me and Delly.”

Brock looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

“Don’t be stupid,” he huffs, and walks away. 

He’s back at Jose’s door again that night, though, looking bright eyed rather than annoyed.

“I’m starting to think you ain’t got no room, you just using me for snuggles and a mattress.”

“Want to see something cool?” 

Brock leads him to the rooftop. In his enthusiasm to drag him there he holds Jose’s hand. When Jose laces their fingers together he looks at him with a raised eyebrow but he don’t pull his hand away. 

Fingers entwined, they stand together on the roof. Brock is wearing another mystifyingly soft sweater. It hangs down over his hands, brushing Jose's too, making him feel cozy. He wants to ask him what it's made of, but he feels stupid for not knowing what could be this soft.

They stare out at the sparkling Capitol skyline, dusted over by the stars, until Jose starts shivering. 

When he does, Brock wraps himself around Jose like a jacket. It’s so unexpected he thinks he’s about to choke him for a second, before Brock’s cheek settles gentle against his, and his 6ft of comfy sweater curls around him. He talks soft in Jose’s ear, telling him about the buildings he knows or has heard stories about. 

It’s like a old romance movie. Them ones his momma told him stories from at bed time, passed down from her ma’s ma who saw them with her own eyes back when they were real. 

He feels so special standing under the big beautiful Capitol sky with this big beautiful boy holding him. Like he’s part of greatness. Destined to be there with Brock. It would be too much to say it’s worth dying for, but whatever happens next he’s glad they got the moment together. 

Brock comes back to his room with him and holds him even tighter in bed. 

They lay down and kissed when they got in. Came from each other’s hands, gasping into each other’s mouths, sleepy and intimate. It felt real cute. Brock stroked a finger over the scar on his hip from the electric fence and his eyes were all soft and concerned for a second. Jose is in that mood he gets with crushes where just kissing Brock’s pretty mouth is the best thing in the world. Brock is blinking softly at him, feeling the fantasy too. He hardly even looks dangerous. He's delicious. Even his skin smells expensive. 

“Sure you don’t want that alliance?” Jose teases, rolling his hips against Brock’s. 

“Comes with some real nice perks, if you know what I’m saying,” he rolls his hips again, peppers kisses on Brock’s collarbone. “Real _perky_.”

“Shut up,” Brock squeezes him. He thinks it’s just Brock’s blunt humor but there’s something rough in his voice too.

“Just don’t miss me too much when you all alone with your bitchy friends,” Jose grins up at him, eyes twinkling, trying to lighten the mood. 

“I will miss you,” Brock says, direct and serious, all uncharacteristically vulnerable. 

It scares Jose as much as it thrills him.

He don’t know what to say. He’ll miss him too, obviously, but it would be dumb as shit to tell him that. It’s one thing for _Brock_ to act all cute when he feels like it, he a Career. He probably got about 5 different deadly plans going on right now and this is part of one of ‘em. Jose gotta think about surviving. 

It don’t matter anyway ‘cause Brock closes his eyes right after and pretends to be asleep. Don’t say nothing else. Even though Jose knows he's faking. But he holds Jose tight and close, big hand spread against his back, until he sneaks back to his own room an hour before dawn. 


	6. Brock

Jose does so good in his interview. Not that Brock would have expected anything less. But even with high expectations, he’s floored. 

He’s been made to study tribute interviews in training since he learned how to talk and he’s never, ever seen a tribute do so well. Even Caesar Flickerman seems amazed by him. It’s almost like he’s interviewing Caesar.

Most years people are bored of interviews by the time it gets to District 12 but this year it’s like the rest of them are the opening acts and Jose, last, is the main event they're all waiting for.

The crowd are on their feet chanting his name as soon as his feet touch the stage. Brock would struggle not to crack under the pressure of expectations that high, but he rises to it. Comes out with the most bizarre hilarious things. 

Brock watches from the stands trying not to enjoy him too obviously, heart pounding in his ears with how proud he is. The cheers after everything he says are so loud they shake the ground. 

He did his best to be as charming, as loveable, in his own interview. 

He did okay. 

He thinks of better answers he could have given for two questions as soon as he's off stage and kicks himself, but he didn't do _bad_ , and at least he looked pretty in his golden suit jacket, chest bare.

Perfection is the angle his team is going for. 

It suits him. He’s excellently trained, exceptionally skilled. Poised, beautiful, immaculately presented. The perfect tribute. Everything he worked to be. 

But it’s not enough. Jose is something else. 

He’s the star of their year. Brock doesn’t know how to compete with that. 

It’s frustrating. Maddening.

He’s trying his best but it’s starting to feel very overwhelming. Particularly when he wishes he didn’t have to _compete_ with him at all.

He was so prepared but he didn’t expect this.

Jose somehow gets a training score of 11 from the judges. The one thing Brock was sure he’d beat him on and he only got a 10. 

The upside is Jose’s score and his interview are enough to make up for his District partner’s uselessness and the other Careers agree they can both join the alliance. It’s worth letting her tag along to have him, with the way the sponsors are sure to be going crazy for him. Even if Brock didn’t have his own biases towards him anyone can objectively see that. No one is thrilled about it but everyone agrees they won’t kill her as long as she doesn’t get in anyone’s way.

He’s a little worried the other Careers agreed to keep Jose close so he’ll be easy to take out. 

Growing up in District 1 you learn to trust people at arm’s length. To keep your suspicions raised like a shield. Jose is too open and trusting. It suited his purposes but he doesn’t like the idea of having to worry about him because he won’t be worrying about himself enough. 

Still, it’s better than him not being with them and worrying about not knowing what’s happening to him at all. 

Brock worries too much about everything.

He needs a clear mind for the Games. To keep his focus. Having Jose nearby so he can see he’s fine is the best way to achieve that. That’s all. 

It’s a practical decision, not a sentimental one. 

Although he can’t help worrying, he doesn’t actually think his fellow Careers would dare kill someone so popular until it’s down to the wire. It would be suicide with the sponsors, maybe even the Gamemakers. He hopes they’re not stupid enough not to realize that. 

Jose is smart, protecting himself like that before he even gets in the arena. 

He wishes he could be better at it himself. He’s trying his hardest to be fun, to be liked by the audience. He’s doing good, but just good. Not a superstar. 

It really bothers him when there’s something he can’t do perfectly. 

Sometimes he thinks his growing fascination with Jose comes from envy of how he can do it. Other times he thinks it’s something far bigger and scarier. Envy has nothing to do with how every time he sees him he desperately wants a kiss. 

He still can’t believe he has all that personality _and_ he got an 11 from the judges.

“What did you do?” he asks that night, head on Jose’s stomach, attacking his abs with coaxing kisses. “How did you get that score?” 

“It was stupid,” Jose rolls his eyes. “Just my dumb temper poppin off. It wasn’t cute.”

Brock rolls him over and presses his hips into the bed, making his lower back arch. 

“What does that mean?” Brock moves the coaxing kisses along his shoulder blades. 

“Naw, I ain’t telling,” Jose lifts his head and smirks over his shoulder. “You the competition.”

His eyes sparkle. He’s playing with him on purpose. 

Brock discovers it’s just as fun to wrestle someone when you have no intention of actually hurting them.


	7. Jose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, depictions of violence get particularly graphic in this one. There is more violence after this but the bloodbath in this chapter is probably the most graphic the description gets. Take care of your sweet little brains!

Jose sits on the bed with the stuff he asked Cinna for spread out all intimidating on the duvet. 

Cinna’s a sweetheart, he came through, slipping it to him after his fitting and explaining how it all works in whispers between pinning his tunic. 

He don’t even know if Brock’s gonna come see him tonight. It’s their last night before the Games. He might be getting his beauty sleep. 

Even if he comes he don’t know if he got the nerve to ask him. If it would make tomorrow better or worse.

There’s a soft knock on the door. He scrabbles to hide the shit. 

He feels all shy answering. 

He don’t know how he’s gonna bring it up, if he even dares. 

Brock looks soft and delicate when he smiles at him in the hall light. So angelically handsome you’d never guess he cut twenty practice dummies in half at the torso without breaking a sweat a couple hours ago. 

It’s too bad Jose is the only one who gets to see him like this ‘cause he so cute when he ain’t deadly murderous.

“One more time?” Brock asks, with a little smile. 

He must see Jose’s answer in his eyes because by the time he’s opened his mouth to reply, Brock’s kissing it, hands sure on his face, walking him back towards the bed and kicking the door shut.

Brock presses him into the bed and he pushes back, lost in the feeling of Brock’s tongue stroking his, his hands running up his body, he rolls them over so his legs are around Brock’s hips, rubbing down against him.

Brock shifts on his back, pauses, and frowns, reaching behind him. “What’s this?”

“Aw shit. Don’t-- Wait--,” Jose slaps a hand over Brock’s eyes uselessly as he pulls out the bottle of lube, the box of condoms, the douche. 

He takes his hand away slowly, cringing as Brock raises an eyebrow at what he found. 

“Planning something?”

He shrugs, trying to look cool like it ain’t a big deal to him. 

“Got some stuff in case. Seeing as it’s our last chance.”

Brock looks at it and stammers, all his cool powerful energy melting away in front of Jose’s eyes.

“What is-- Is it-- It’s for--?”

“Mmhm,” Jose bobs his head, neither of them daring to say sex. 

“You wanna?” He puts an encouraging hand on Brock’s thigh. 

“I ain’t never done it before. Could be fun--” He tries to keep his voice even like he could take it or leave it.

“Thought we could, you know, before I whoop your ass tomorrow,” he says with a smile and a nudge so Brock knows he’s joking. 

“So I ain’t gotta die a lil’ virgin,” he winks, going for funny, but it falls flat. 

Brock looks at him sharply, like he’s mad at him for bringing it up. Even though he’s always the one talking about how fast he gonna cut him up when the time comes.

“So. You want me to--” Brock is staring at the douche, eyes wide. 

It’s the first time Jose’s ever seen him look scared. 

Brock frowns at it. “I don’t think-- I mean, I might, but--”

“Naw, no. Uh--” he grabs the douche from Brock, too shy to say it. “I mean, if you wanna. But I was thinking--” he clutches it against his chest, embarrassed. 

“Oh,” Brock blinks at him, visibly relaxing when he gets what he means. 

He looks at him too long, making Jose all fidgety, his scary sexy powers returning. Then he smiles a little.

“Sure. Okay. We can try if you want.”

He tenses up. 

“Just don’t think it means--” 

“I know, I know. No special treatment,” he interrupts before Brock can go off on a speech about winning again and really kill the mood with his District 1 bullshit. “I already know. Chil’ I ain’t expecting no chivalry.” 

He slides a hand up Brock’s thigh and squeezes his crotch. 

“Even when I’m hobbling my little ass ‘round that arena from taking all this,” he massages Brock’s crotch and Brock snorts. 

“I know soon as you feelin slicey you gon’ come running after me swinging that big ol sword.”

Brock giggles. Actually giggles. Like Delly would’ve, before all this.

He claps a hand over his mouth, horrified. 

Jose has to smirk.

“Don’t worry.” He leans in, “I won’t tell nobody you secretly cute.”

Jose winks and kisses Brock’s cheek. 

He frowns at the instructions on the douche as he heads to the bathroom. 

If you told him a week ago his first time doing anal was gonna be with a Career from District 1 he woulda laughed. But as Brock helps him open himself up and slides inside him all hot and super focussed on his every breath, panting into each other's mouths, he’s weirdly never felt safer or more comfortable, even though it's insanely intimate to be with someone who might kill him. It's like their bodies don't know they're supposed to be enemies and have decided to work together like magic.

Afterwards they don’t wanna say goodbye. Brock holds him while they get sleepy, not saying much. Brock says he was really funny in his interview and Jose glows with pride. 

"Did you like my outfit?" Brock preens, shimmying his shoulders like he still got the tight gold jacket and little hotpants on. 

"What outfit? You was barely wearing anything," Jose raises an eyebrow at him. It might be a bad idea to sass a Career the night before the Games but he can't help the shit he says, especially now he's so comfortable with Brock. 

Brock ain't mad. He giggles, delighted. 

"But did you like it?" His eyes gleam. 

"Yeah. I liked it," Jose watches him enjoy the attention. He runs a hand up his chest, burning with the memory of how sexy he looked and how jealous he was that it was for everyone. He was making himself cute for hundreds of other people. Just one of the dangers of getting a crush on a Career ho. "Bet a lotta people liked it."

Brock smiles dopily as though that's a good thing.

"I hope so," he says softly.

"I wish I was the only one who saw it," Jose says quietly, because he can't help his stupid mouth.

Dick has done irreversible things to him. He shouldn't have let himself know what it's like to have Brock inside him.

Brock's smile falters for a second, and then gets bigger. 

"You're the only one who's seeing this," he leans in, warm and strong against him and puts Jose's hand on his ass. Jose smiles and kisses him, because that's true, and it's something. He pats Brock's ass as he snuggles into his shoulder. He ain't stupid enough to say _good ho_ , but he says it in his head.

He's always been jealous. He hates it. He only gets like it over boys. He ain't never been mad about having no money, not like Gale gets mad about it. But watching Ember give a flower to Daisy on the last day of school after kissing him two days before felt like his heart was on fire. 

It don't matter now anyway. He got more to worry about than everybody thirsting over this big pretty ho on top of him. From tomorrow he gotta worry about staying alive.

Brock brushes his lips back and forth against his neck, tickly and nice, and traces the scar on his hip like he's memorizing it. When Jose’s eyes start to droop, Brock gets up, leaving a cold spot against his chest. 

Jose wants to ask him to stay but he knows he gotta go sleep and get ready for tomorrow too. 

He wonders if he’ll get any sleep down there on the first floor. If he’s as nervous as he is. 

He didn’t think he’d sleep a minute in this cold as shit air conditioned fancy ass room all by himself, but with Brock there every night he’s been snoozing like a happy lil' baby all snuggled up in Brock’s arms. 

“My team is knocking early,” Brock says, straightening his clothes out, looking at Jose on the bed and not leaving. 

Jose does his best seductive pose and blinks up at him. 

He knows he’d sleep better if Brock stayed but he ain’t gonna ask him.

“Okay,” Brock says decisively, after an eternity. “Um-- Bye.” 

He leans down for a kiss. 

But they don’t stop kissing. It feels like they can’t.

They both know this is it. Everything will be different tomorrow. These might be the last kisses they’ll ever have in their lives, at least for one of them. They can almost taste each other’s desperation.

Jose walks all the way over to the door with him, still kissing. He watches Brock walk away down the hall and Brock turns around and runs back for one more kiss, which becomes ten more, which becomes pressing him into the door frame kissing him so good he nearly forgets what they even doing tomorrow. 

He lies in bed and touches his lips and tries to keep all those kisses in his memory. 

They ain’t talked about it but he don’t think it’s likely Brock will give him more kisses in the arena. 

He’s cordial with him at the Training Center now Jose and Delly are in his alliance, and he makes the other Careers act cool and cordial to them too, so Jose acts cute and cordial back to all of ‘em. 

But Brock ain’t acted like he wanna keep kissing Jose on national TV. Not with all his nothing leaves this room fuckshit. 

The soft dopey eyed version of him that kisses Jose wouldn’t look good for his whole District 1 tough guy act, and Brock loves to play that stupid shit up. He needs to forget about that Brock. He's as good as gone now.

Brock will be too focussed on winning when they get in there to think about anything else, anyway. He knows Brock enough to know that. 

He just hopes Brock ain’t done him dirty. He hopes he can trust the alliance he made with the Careers. That it ain’t all a big trap to play him. They ain’t gonna turn on him and Delly the second they get in there. 

As he hugs Cinna tight and gets in the tube his gut says to trust Brock, as intensely as Cinna whispers, “Go be a star baby.”

So he winks at Cinna and listens to his gut. It ain’t led him wrong before.

Right off the bat when the countdown ends Jose tenses to run, just in case, but nobody goes for him. 

His gut was right, for now. 

The Careers go off hacking at the other kids around them, clearing a path to the Cornucopia and mowing down kids who are stupid enough to get in their way. None of them touch Jose or Delly.

He sees Brock’s eyes flick over and quickly away back to the kid whose neck he’s snapping when he sees Jose is fine. 

He wonders if he woulda done anything about it if he wasn’t. 

He don’t think Brock would stand up for him, especially not against other Careers, but he might step in and make his death quick and painless, if he was lucky. Maybe sneakily kiss him goodbye as he did it if he was real lucky. 

He has to look away from Brock because now he’s slicing a kid open right down the torso like a zipper and tossing the pieces of guts that spill out around with his sword, like it’s a game, while the kid screams in shock, not dead yet. 

His stomach turns. He clenches it so he don’t gag. 

That ain’t Brock. That’s a Career. It ain’t his Brock. The one who whispers sweetly in his ear on rooftops.

He mighta joked last night but he _is_ sore from the dick, so he’s glad he don’t have to run like crazy. He really would be hobbling. 

He ducks a severed limb flying at him and heads for Delly, frozen on her plate. 

He wants to go stand close to Brock and whisper to him, tell him he’s sore, have Brock wrap his arms around him and comfort him, but he don’t dare try it. Even if Brock wasn’t covered in another kid’s blood right now, he doubts it would get the reaction he wants. 

Brock’s eyes keep finding him though, when he dares look, trying to ignore what Brock’s doing and just look at Brock. He don't know if he’s imagining Brock's eyes softer when he looks at him ‘cause he’s a dumb romantic. Every time he thinks they are and blinks they’re cold and focussed again when he looks back. 

He makes it to Delly and drags her towards the Cornucopia while the Careers go off slaughtering as many kids as they can get their hands on. 

He can’t watch, it makes him wanna throw up. 

He hates seeing gentle uncertain Brock from last night as this cold ruthless Career slicing through skin like paper, making a whole routine out of it, making it nastier than it needs to be, like it’s a show.

And he sure as shit ain’t about to start joining in and helping, alliance or not. That ain’t him.

None of the other kids go for him either, even though he ain't in alliances with all of them. His chatty ass talked to most of them at the Training Center, not with any motive, just because he likes making conversation, so why wouldn't he? Everybody seemed decent. He's made almost everyone laugh at least once. Maybe it'll buy him some time, make them go for someone else before him, even though he didn't plan it. 

Clove throws him a dirty look when she sees him and Delly heading away from the brawl. 

“Baby behind you!” he yells at her, and she turns just in time to block a blow from District 9. He tosses her the knife he just picked up, cringing when she stabs the District 9 kid in the face with it. 

He feels like it’s his fault as the kid bleeds out. He feels like an asshole for helping her do that.

“We gonna secure the supplies!” He yells, tugging Delly away, because he can’t look at the kid gurgling blood no more. 

Clove is gonna have to deal with it. He just helped the bitch out and he ain’t tryna do no more shit that ain’t true to himself no matter who he’s allied with, so she can look as dirty as she likes at the back of his head. He ain’t helping her kill no more kids.

He ain't afraid of a fight, he gets in dumb fights all the time back home, but these kids ain't done shit to him. It don't feel right to come for them for no reason. Not unless they come for him first. If he gets mad he gets real mad but if his temper ain't there, it ain't. He can't fake shit.

He rounds up the supplies with Delly, scaring away a couple kids who get close, but he feels bad for them so he tries to let them get close enough to grab at least _something_ before he chases them off. 

He picks up the bow for himself and stacks the other supplies neat and tidy, chatting to the camera hovering near him about the details of his organizational process for the folks at home. 

His hands shake a little and he makes his chat more animated so they won’t notice. 

If he wasn’t used to having to put on a strong front and hustle to survive, he’d probably be falling apart already. He’d be like Delly, pale as a ghost and trembling so much she keeps dropping what she’s passing him. 

He pushes all that shit away because it ain’t gonna help him in here. He pastes on a smile and pretends this is his own TV show and the camera’s here just for him to show people how to stack ammunition crates.

If he survives this is basically his audition for his own TV show, so he makes it good.

After they done killing the innocents the Careers make their way over. 

“That’s mine,” Glimmer narrows her eyes at the bow over Jose’s shoulder. 

“Why I got it then?” Jose raises his eyebrows. There goes the sass again. Shit. But he can't reign it in. If she wanna get cute, he's gonna get cute back. 

“You’re better with a javelin anyway,” Brock says in that weird rough fake voice he do in front of these fools, tossing one at her. 

“I want the bow, _Brock_ ,” Glimmer throws the javelin down and crosses her arms ready to throw a hissy fit. 

Clove laughs, because the bitch loves tension. 

Brock’s eyes dart between them. He obviously ain’t close to her, unless he plays nice with her in private like he do with Jose. But Jose knows he ain’t about to come out and openly support him over his District partner. That would look bad. 

“Is it really worth getting into a fight about right now? We have shit to plan,” Brock says in the same stupid macho voice, very tense. 

Jose wonders again if a fight happened right now whose side Brock would be on. He don’t know why he tortures himself thinking dumb shit like that. If he’s honest with himself it’s obvious. 

Glimmer squares off with Jose, not backing down. 

Brock looks pressed and at the same time like he trying real hard not to look bothered. 

Jose don’t even think about saving his own ass as much as he thinks he gotta help Brock stop looking so pressed before the others ask why he cares so much. 

“Okay, y’all, audience participation,” he bluffs some bullshit off the top of his head. 

“Help us solve this lil dispute,” he turns to the nearest camera sassily. 

“Y’all want Miss Glimmer to have this bow or me? Vote now bitches, fingers on keypads, let us know. It’s your show.”

Glimmer glares at him, a mix of furious and impressed. She turns awkwardly to the camera and does a little shimmy wave trying to be cute, like she just remembered they’re on TV. 

“Just fight for it,” Cato sounds bored. “They’re not gonna listen to you. That’s not how it works. Nobody cares about you that much, _Princess_.”

He directs it at both of them, but he’s looking at Jose when he says it, with extra bite. 

Cato takes a bite of an apple but before he can chew it, his mouth drops open. 

The first parachute of the Games drops out of the sky and floats directly into Jose’s hands. He raises an eyebrow at their gobsmacked faces, hoping his shenanigans worked. 

He unwraps the parachute and it’s an extra quiver of arrows. Inside he screams _YES!_

Outwardly, he smirks at Glimmer real smug. 

“Baby the viewers have spoken. Don’t be mad.” He turns back to the camera, delighted and a little scared at how well it worked, smiling cutely. 

“Thank y’all! Y’all know I appreciate you making the right decision. Treating me real nice. It means so much,” he touches his heart, because it does.

“You a good audience. Now don’t y’all worry, we gon’ give you a good show this year, baby. I guarantee. Watch this space, bitches. Stay tuned. Thank you!”

He blows the camera a kiss. Brock is watching him heatedly but it’s hard to tell if he’s mad at him or impressed.

Glimmer is mad. 

“You’re assuming they’re for you. They could be for me. I’m standing right next to you.”

“Bitch, in my District colors?” he shows her the custom arrow tips and she screams with frustration. 

“Glimmer, shut up,” Cato finishes chewing his apple. “Take the javelin.”

When he looks at Jose he thinks maybe Cato got some respect for him. As much as the asshole respects anybody. But he also looks suspicious. Like Jose is a real threat now.

They eat their fill and divide up supplies and plan how they’re gonna move around in shifts, hunting out the other tributes and guarding supplies. 

Jose’s guess was right. There ain’t no sign of romance from Brock. But it ain’t a trap either. 

After Glimmer simmers down with her javelin they mostly all get on okay. The Careers are obviously jealous of Jose’s popularity and think he’s crazy for chatting it up with the cameras. And he ain’t forgotten the way they used to whisper about him in training before the alliance. 

But now they treat him civil. Clove is unhinged and he trusts her least of all. But between Brock subtly standing up for him when he can and Cato’s grudging respect, everybody keeps it cute.

He mostly keeps his distance but tries to make them laugh whenever there’s a opportunity, throwing most of his jokes right at cameras with a wink. 

When they find tributes and get in fights he tries to act like he’s doing his part, jumps in if he has to. He don’t like the idea of killing unless it’s self defence, him or them, but he defends the others if they leave a blind spot open and they seem pleased he’s being kinda useful. 

Delly stays with them, lurking terrified at the edge of the group. She gives Jose grateful smiles whenever he talks to her but she too pressed to say much back. 

Brock acts friendly with him, he ain’t rude or as distant as the rest, but he ain’t nothing like he was in private. He don’t talk to Jose any more than he talks to the others. Which ain’t much. He all quiet and thoughtful most of the time, occasionally sneering at a weak tribute or teasing his fellow Careers. 

But he always looking. 

At night Brock keeps finding ways to be lying next to him wherever they camp. 

When everyone’s rolled over to sleep, Brock’s hand creeps over.

His pinky finger drapes over Jose’s.

Jose turns his palm the tiniest bit so he can hook the edge of his pinky around Brock's.

Jose looks at him in the dark and Brock looks back steadily. 

They watch each other, touching pinkies, ‘til they fall asleep.

He has to keep reminding himself how many times Brock said he won’t hesitate to kill him once they're in here ‘cause that ain’t what it feels like. 


	8. Brock

After eight days they’ve killed most of the other tributes. It won’t be long before they need to start turning on each other. 

Brock can feel it starting in the air. They start snapping at each other more over little things. Everyone is getting tense. 

Apparently Jose isn’t stupid either. In the middle of their eighth night, when the District 12 girl is on watch, Brock is woken by an insistent little hand shaking his shoulder. 

“We going,” Jose whispers, when Brock sits up blinking away sleep. He has a backpack.

Brock sees the District 12 girl waiting anxiously at the mouth of the Cornucopia with a bag. 

“Time to bounce before y’all get all crazy,” Jose practically mouths it, quieter than Brock knew he could be, glancing around cautiously at the others sleeping. 

“Wanted to tell you-- You know-- Bye,”’ he mouths, oddly shy for him. 

It doesn’t feel right. 

Nothing about this does. 

Brock is still half asleep and it feels like a bad dream. But he just nods his head. 

Jose can tell it’s time, just like he can feel it coming himself. 

He’s smart. Brock is proud of his instincts even as his stomach twists in a knot. 

“Good luck,” Jose mouths, looking at him intently.

“You too,” Brock mouths back. 

Jose hesitates, not leaving. His fists clench. 

He almost turns away and then instead he darts in quick, presses the lightest kiss to Brock’s mouth. 

He bolts back, looking guilty but determined. 

And a little scared Brock might kill him for it. 

He should.

Brock hears the cameras around them click and turn, focussing on the new development. 

He should be mad at Jose just deciding for the both of them to do that right in the middle of the arena. He should be furious. 

Right now he doesn’t care. 

He grabs Jose by the chin and kisses him deeply, with everything he wishes he could say. 

Jose gasps into his mouth, then matches his ferocity, practically climbing into his lap. 

Brock pushes him away when they start panting too loudly, looking worriedly at the others sleeping. 

They stare at each other, dazed. 

The District 12 girl fidgets anxiously. She looks so shocked he wants to giggle. 

“For real though. We gotta go,” Jose rasps, loud enough to be audible. 

Brock starts to panic, torn between telling him to shut up and get out of there before he wakes someone and clinging to him, begging him to stay with them even though it would be suicide for him. 

Jose leans in for one more kiss. Soft and barely there. This one is goodbye. It feels like it. 

“Bye,” he breathes against Brock’s mouth. 

Then he’s standing, too far to reach. 

“W--wait,” Brock breathes, his hands moving to his neck as if in a trance. 

Jose drops back down immediately, looking heartbreakingly hopeful. 

Brock reaches under his tunic and takes off the chain that holds his token, the gorgeous pink diamond he’s worn proudly since his dad put it around his neck in the Justice Building. He’s walked around the arena with his shirt off some days to make sure everyone sees it. 

Jose’s mouth drops open when Brock places it carefully around his neck.

“For good luck,” he manages to get out around the lump in his throat. He strokes a finger under Jose's chin. 

“You’ll need it,” he adds, with a smirk, so he doesn’t completely ruin his reputation. 

Jose touches the chain reverently. It hangs way too big on him, down to the middle of his chest. He tucks it inside his tunic and fumbles with the fabric near his belt.

“Here,” a cheap dented pin in the shape of a bird is pressed into his hand. “It’s my mom’s.”

It wouldn’t even sell for scrap in District 1 but Brock curls his fingers around it and nods, like it’s precious. 

“Thanks,” he breathes. 

Jose stares at him like he’s never gonna leave. Maybe he’ll change his mind and stay one more day. He could just lie back down and hold Brock’s hand and Brock’s chest might stop feeling like it’s gonna explode.

Just when Brock is sure he’s about to kiss him again, Jose reaches into his tunic and pulls out the chain. He kisses Brock’s pink diamond, winks, and clenches his fists. 

Then he’s backing away, blinking fast.

Brock didn’t even get one more kiss. The edges of Jose’s pin dig into his palm. 

Jose’s eyes shine wetly in the dark and then he and the District 12 girl are going, going, gone. Already too far to see clearly without light. 

Brock watches him leave with the lump suffocating his throat. 

He’s proud Jose trusted him enough to wake him. He trusted Brock wouldn’t kill them. That thought makes him feel warm. 

It would have sucked to find them gone in the morning. To not know what happened, not get to say goodbye, have to wait all day hoping he wouldn’t see his face up there. Hoping he _just_ abandoned him. Brock might have gone crazy, accused the others and started attacking them. 

He’s glad, even if Jose did just make a spectacle of them, kissing him on national TV. 

He tries not to think what that looked like to his family watching proudly at home. 

It’ll only matter if he survives anyway. It’s too early to worry about that. 

Fuck it, it felt nice. He deserves nice things at a time like this.

That was the last time he’ll ever see Jose alive. It sits like poison in his gut. 

Unless he has to kill him, which would be even worse than seeing his face in the sky. 

He tries to imagine Jose's pin in his mansion in Victor's Village, when it's the only thing left of him. He feels like he's going to throw up.

He’s been trying not to think this far, about this moment. He went to all the trouble of getting him in the alliance to keep him safe a little longer. But this was always coming eventually.

The horrible feeling twists painfully inside. He’s furious at himself for getting this involved. This is his own fault. He fucked up and started caring too much, _feeling_ too much for him, accidentally. _This_ is why he didn’t waste time with boys before. He should have known this would happen. He needs to shut these feelings down immediately.

But he can’t stop the sadness choking him. 

He rubs the edge of the pin like it’ll make it any better. It’s something, to have any small part of Jose still with him, to touch. But it’s not the same. 

He already misses Jose’s crazy jokes, his annoyingly loud voice, his bright cute smile. He's this weird poor antsy little kid but he finds the joy and silliness in everything. No one’s ever made Brock feel as light as he does. He's nice to be around. 

At first Brock kissed him because he was the only option. He kept doing stuff with him because his lips were so soft and sexy to kiss and his body was hot. The whole of Panem knows Jose is funny, because he never shuts up making sure they do. But at some point Brock started thinking Jose was nice, liking him as a person, as much as he likes Ang or Aurora. If he met him anywhere else he'd want to be his friend, even if they weren't kissing.

All the more reason it's good he left. Brock doesn't want any of his friends here with him. Not for what he has to do to win.

But it feels like such a waste. Every extra little minute he could spend with Jose until they get no more minutes together, ever, stretches out in front of him, lost, as Brock watches their outlines walk away until they’re specs in the darkness. His heart feels heavy in his chest. 

He lies down. 

He can’t close his eyes because he sees Jose smiling behind his lids. 

It literally hurts not to be with him. Brock’s body feels all weird and wrong like it doesn’t fit anymore. What’s _wrong_ with him?

There’s no way he’ll sleep. 

He sits back up. 

He looks at the kids sleeping around him. The best of the best, who never make jokes unless they’re making fun of weaker kids, and would cut him as soon as he turned his back, every one of them. The last people he'll ever see if his best isn't good enough.

“Wait,” he whispers, loud as he dares, even though the person he wants to hear is too far away now.

Brock is up and moving before he can second guess himself. His body is reaching for supplies before his mind catches up. 

He grabs his sword and his pack, the best of the food, smiling when he sees Jose has already taken a lot of the good stuff. 

He picks across the sleeping bodies of the other Careers without looking back, not wasting any time over a goodbye. 

He summons all his grace and stealth and runs, as fast and as silently as he can, across the open field.

He runs blindly in the direction he last saw them. 

He realizes he’s muttering “Please, please,” under his breath with the pound of each stride and bites his cheek hard to stop it in case the cameras pick it up. 

They appear on the horizon in the distance and Brock’s heart skips with relief. 

He’s gaining ground behind them, creeping silently across the field, when Jose whips around, alert.

His bow comes up, drawn, pointing warily into the darkness, and Brock feels flush with pride at his reflexes. 

Jose squints into the dark. 

Brock keeps moving closer. He sees the moment Jose recognizes him. 

“I come in peace,” he jokes, holding up Jose’s token. 

Jose’s mouth drops open and he lowers the bow cautiously.

“What you doing?” It’s a good thing they’re away from anyone now because Jose is bad at whispering.

Brock could scream himself with happiness at seeing Jose’s cute confused little frown again. As soon as he catches his breath, because he ran _hard_ after them.

“Forget to kill us?” Jose’s voice wobbles like he’s only half joking, and it makes Brock wanna scoop him up in his arms.

Brock swallows and shifts his weight, awkward and hopeful. 

“Still want that alliance?” 

He feels like shit. All vulnerable like he’s standing there naked. This is _such_ a stupid decision. He’s glad he never wasted time with boys before because it’s absolute _agony_ to like one so much you’ll do really stupid things just to be with him.

“For real?”

Jose’s whole face lights up. 

He flings himself at Brock, squeezing him tight. Brock hikes him up and his legs wrap around his hips, hugging him with his whole body. 

Brock can feel Jose’s heart pounding against his. His bow digs in his back. The District 12 girl watches them, wary and confused. 

Brock doesn’t care about any of it. He gets to be with the boy he likes a little bit longer. 

Jose nudges at his face until they’re kissing. He feels his cheeks burn with embarrassment. Kissing a boy in the middle of an open field on TV. But he doesn’t stop. He strokes Jose’s jaw, kisses him more thoroughly. Lets himself be so happy for a second.

He might die soon, so why not allow himself this? 

He’ll do his best to win. He was born to win these games. But he’s not unrealistic. Thinking practically and reasonably will do him more good.

Speaking of practical and reasonable, he tells himself this move is a good strategy anyway. Wait it out with these two while the other Careers eliminate each other, then he can swoop in and snatch victory from whoever’s left. 

But that’s not why he did it. 

There’s also a problem with that strategy. 

If everyone else kills each other, that leaves these two for Brock to kill.

That is something he absolutely can not think about if he wants to maintain any composure.

Maybe if he’s lucky Jose will die some other way and it won’t have to be him who does it. 

Except that thought makes him feel sick. He’s not some random kid who doesn’t matter, who no one will remember except for their kill, a footnote in someone else’s story. He’s not dumb and frightened and practically begging to be put out of his misery like the usual tributes from 12. He’s special. The little guy is a beacon of energy and light. Brock finds it hard to imagine he’s even _able_ to die. The very idea of it seems so wrong. 

“Come on, we gotta move,” Jose jumps down, lets him go and darts up to peck a quick kiss against his mouth, shyly, as though Brock might protest. As though he hasn’t already surrendered everything to him. 

“You can tell me all about how you missed me so much you hadda come running after my ass once we safe. I don’t wanna miss this.”

Brock snorts and squeezes his hip. 

Fuck. He ugly laughed on TV. 

Oh, fuck it. He can’t stop all of them. The audience is gonna have to deal with him not being perfect all the time.

Jose’s hands wriggle into his pockets. He smiles when one comes out with the pin he gave Brock. He fixes it back on his tunic, sucking his thumb when he pricks it. 

“Hey! I thought you gave that to me?”

“Right, when we was leaving. You don’t need it no more. You got me for luck,” he smiles brightly like a little human token. 

“Good thing you came after us. If I don’t die in here first my ma woulda killed me if I lost this.”

That joke goes straight to a camera and Brock watches him, amused. 

“Do I get mine back too?”

“No,” Jose smirks cheekily. “Looks cuter on me.”

He skips away when Brock tackles him. They start walking. 

“I’m still gonna kill you to win,” Brock says softly.

“Sure you are,” after a couple steps Jose holds out his hand. Brock takes it. 

They don’t have to think about that yet. 

He watches Jose look around, find a camera and wink at it like an old friend. It makes him a little uneasy and a little impressed. 


	9. Jose

They get parachutes all the next day, more than Jose has ever seen in a Games, let alone in one day. 

Apparently the audience likes what they saw.

So he carries on letting the cameras see him be cute with Brock. 

It don’t feel right, kinda violating, against his natural instinct to get shy about it. But people obviously like it, like them together. 

If it helps, it’s dumb not to let it. They gotta use everything they can. 

Besides, at least one of them ain’t leaving the arena. It’s not like they can save it for private. They might as well make the most of being together while they can.

He pushes that thought away fast before it fucks him up. 

Ain’t no room for weakness in here. Ain't no room for thoughts of anything beyond right now. Right now he can suddenly hold Brock's hand whenever. He thought he never would again. So that's nice. Right now Brock keeps kissing him. So he ain't complaining.

They get sent cute stuff. A picnic basket, which they share with Delly, who ain’t got no sponsors yet. 

They get useful stuff. A water purifier, some tool to sharpen Brock’s blade, more arrows. 

They get stuff that makes it real clear what people watching want next. Condoms and lube. 

Brock keeps looking at him all intense and concerned, his expression so loud Jose can almost hear him asking _Should we do it? Are you sure?_

He won't say it out loud though. Wouldn’t be too District 1 of him to let out the thoughtful considerate side Jose knows is in there. 

He thinks of the look in Brock’s eyes when he saw the condoms on his bed and knows Brock is gonna worry himself into a mess he won’t want people to see if he don’t take the lead, so he grabs Brock’s wrist and marches them over to a bunch of caves. 

They find a real dark cave that only got one camera near the front.

They leave Delly to keep look out and go as deep inside as they can. 

As they go in it feels like it's happening in slow motion, like it's happening to somebody else.

The hand that's not in Brock's grips the packets and his mind races. They needa do it sneakily. Be loud enough about using the gift that the sponsors don’t get pissed but not real full frontal, avoid having TV sex that would make their mommas ashamed or make him die of embarrassment if he ever makes it back to visit his school. 

He mutters an apology to his ma as they pass the camera, just in case. 

Back home he blushed if his ma even asked who he was crushing on. Fighting for your life really changes the shit you'll tolerate.

He don’t really wanna do it. It feels nasty to think about. But it ain’t like they got a choice. 

He ain't stupid, he knows that much. He started this with the cameras, he wanted people interested. Now they interested. His dumb idea he thought was so clever is working too well.

It’s kept him alive though. It’d be even dumber to ruin it now. To turn the audience against them, throw away everything he built, his chances at surviving this shitshow, over one thing he don’t feel like doing.

Ain’t like it’s torture. Not like he gotta kill a bunch of kids or even do this with someone he don’t like. 

Not like he wouldn't wanna do it with Brock if they weren’t here being watched. Not like he didn’t _love_ doing it with Brock at the Training Center. Not like he didn't imagine doing it with Brock after they go to his school dance together, in a world that can never happen, all the nights they fell asleep with their pinkies touching.

It’s just…private. Doing it here is nothing like their own little world in his Training Center bed. He's gonna have to make himself forget there are kids out to kill them and cameras watching. The mind is a powerful organ. He don't gotta like it but he can do it because he has to.

Seems like Brock is on the same page, letting Jose drag him along by the hand. 

Since he come running after them all cute Brock’s been real deferential. It’s different. Jose is used to Brock acting aloof and hardass in here. He ain’t fully _soft_ like when they were alone, but he’s letting his guard down. Jose likes getting to boss him around more.

He stops when they as far inside the cave as they can go. It's so dark he can only just see Brock in front of him. He hopes the camera won’t see but who knows what their fancy ass cameras can do. 

He leans up and kisses Brock and tries to make his mind go blank, forget about the camera, even though this is all a performance for them. 

He makes enough noise to be a full production himself just from kissing. 

Brock pulls back and gives him a raised eyebrow, looking at him funny because he’s always loud but this is too much even for him. He jerks his head in the direction of the camera. Brock blinks at it and then starts making more noise himself. 

They only undo what they have to, they don’t take anything off. He wants all Brock’s gorgeous skin under his hands again but he don't want the whole of Panem to see it. It's bad enough how much he prances around with his shirt off for the sponsors, they ain't getting even more of a show if he can help it. Besides they gotta stay ready to run, or fight, incase anybody comes.

He sneaks his hands up under Brock’s shirt, just for a touch. 

Brock turns him around, shoves him, acting up, playing tough. It would be rough except there’s no force behind it. It’s all nudges, his eyes wide and scared up close, darting over where the camera at, pleading with Jose to follow. 

Jose eyerolls internally but he don't shove him back and ask him what he think he doing. He goes with Brock’s nudges, lets Brock live his tough guy fantasy for his sponsors. Him and his dumb Career reputation. 

Brock grabs the back of his neck and Jose lets Brock bend him over til his hands hit the rocks. 

He feels the slick of lube over the callouses on Brock’s fingers and barely has to exaggerate his moans. Brock squeezes the back of his neck and huffs and puffs above him but his fingers are careful inside him, spreading him gently, dancing over the magic spot they found the first time. 

He tries to relax, he really tries, but rushing through it in a cave where they might get jumped by killer kids any second and Brock’s faking rough and he’s doing his best impression of the Mayor’s wife that one time they knocked the door with strawberries and heard her in the bedroom screaming _yes! Oh yes Timothee_! All that fuckshit ain’t the same as doing it in clean sheets with Brock giggling at him all sweet, touching him like it's a secret they got together, drawing noises from him that surprise himself. 

When he’s as open as he thinks he’s gonna get he fumbles for the condom, presses it blindly back at Brock. 

Brock leans across his back, breath hot near Jose’s ear, trying not to be heard. 

“Now? You sure?” 

“Mmmhmm. Now, baby, yes!” Jose yells for the camera.

Brock rips the packet but he turns his face further into Jose and breathes,

“We could just…”

He feels Brock’s erection slide between his cheeks. Brock thrusts, doing his best exaggerated moan, which ain't shit compared to Jose's own performance but he's acting like he’s inside him. From where the camera’s at even if it can see something, they probably can’t tell. 

But now they got this far, Jose wants the rest. 

They'll probably never get another chance. If their mommas are gonna be mad anyway, even if it ain’t perfect he wants more than some half-assed rubbing to remember Brock by. He wants all of him.

Jose reaches behind him, fumbling to take him in his hand.

“Uh uh, like this,” he says, making sure the condom is on, meeting what he can see of Brock’s eyes in the dark and guiding him to push inside him for real.

“Yes!” He yells, slapping the rocks, totally fake, because the stretch when Brock pushes in _hurts_. 

He ain’t relaxed, Brock ain’t small, and it’s only their second time trying to figure it out. They didn't do this position before. It feels like Brock's dick got bigger somehow when it's going in this way. He didn’t realize how much it would hurt. 

“Fuck baby, that’s so good!” he grits out through clenched teeth, voice shaky, bravely pushing through the blinding sharp stretch, hoping he ain’t bleeding.

He faces determinedly forward and bites his tongue, chews on his lip, pushes against the rocks, squeezes his eyes shut, tries to make only pleased sounds, and keep rocking back against Brock like he likes it, because that’s what the audience wants, what Brock deserves. 

He does kinda like it. It feels kinda good even with the pain. He don't wanna stop. He loves the feeling of Brock inside him, filling him. Brock doing his sexy tough Career guy show, gripping his hips, squeezing his ass, smacking it, forcing him to arch. Brock hitting his spot with the new angle that feels real good even with the burn. 

But as Brock picks up the pace, he can’t help it, a noise slips out that’s obviously pain. 

Brock hesitates.

Jose is surprised how instantly he holds still, how carefully he was listening.

He drapes himself over Jose’s back.

“Are you okay?” He pants into his ear, so gentle and concerned Jose knows he must be terrified of the camera hearing. 

He strokes Jose’s hip soothingly, fingers finding the ridges of his scar like a habit.

“Mmhmm,” Jose grits his teeth and keeps pushing back against him. They gotta finish the show. 

But Brock is forgetting his tough Career character. Or giving up on it. He presses a kiss to the back of Jose's neck. 

“You’re not,” he breathes, uncertain. “Am I hurting you? I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jose wants to laugh and cry at Brock being dumb enough to actually say that to him, in the middle of the Games.

He hopes Brock won’t get mad at him after for making him worried about him. At least he's using in his real voice, which is soft enough the camera might miss it.

He feels Brock slip out and slide between his cheeks again. The condom must be gone now because it's slick naked skin.

"There was blood on it," Brock mutters tightly, reading his mind.

"But--" he tries to protest but Brock says, "Shhh," and speeds up, wrapping a hand around Jose to help him finish. 

The pain eased up as soon as Brock slid out and this is feels good but he misses Brock inside him already. It was nicer on a bed, when it didn't hurt, but Jose can’t get enough of Brock. He’ll take it however he can get it before--

He can’t think about Brock dying. It fucks him up. Like he could just fall on the ground and never get up. 

He don't want him to die. But he don’t wanna die either. It's the worst.

He don’t know what they gonna do about it.

He ain’t gonna think about it until he has to. You can only think day by day in the Games. You just gotta get through the next thing. 

At least they're still together. A couple days ago he never woulda dared think he’d even get that. 

He shuts his brain up, forces his focus on the tug of Brock’s hand, the nudge of him between his cheeks, then slipping between his thighs. The soft kisses that keep coming, pressed into his neck, his shoulder, awkwardly on his chin, Brock panting hotly in his ear when he can’t kiss anymore, until he gasps and Jose feels warm wetness spread and run down his legs. Brock gets heavy on him and bites his shoulder and he shudders and comes against the rock.

When they head back out to Delly there’s a parachute waiting with a gift of washcloths and some soothing pain numbing cream for his ass. 

So the camera _was_ fancy. Or they no good at being sneakily. 

He wants to cry a little bit but it's too late now. They already did it. 

He hides his face in Brock's chest for a second. Yells at himself in his head to get it together. Brock squeezes him and looks a little pale when he looks up. He kept up his weird Career act for most of it so he ain't gotta worry too bad. He don't think Brock will care if people see them, except for seeing him act soft. The boy walks around the arena half naked and pouting half the time, he don't seem shy about sexiness, like Jose is. 

Jose hopes his mom ain't gonna be mad or embarrassed. He hopes no one will look at her funny or yell at her when she goes to the Hob. He hopes his brothers will look away or cover their ears if they air it on the big screen in the town square. They wouldn't, right?

At least they picked a good spot, where the rocks covered most of it. 

He tries to forget it ever happened.

He decides for sanity he gotta erase it from his brain completely, hope they didn't show much, and carry on with their PG13, TV-appropriate fantasy.

They go back in the cave for Brock to help him with the cream, to have at least the illusion of privacy. Brock spreads it inside him carefully, quiet and worried. It's cold and weird feeling but his insides feel better as soon as it touches. Brock kisses the dip in his back when he's done, and keeps tugging him to sit in his lap when they go back outside. His tough guy act is really going to shit. He's kinda antsy but mostly seems more okay with that than Jose woulda thought. 

As far as Jose can tell sponsors don't give a shit anyway. Though try getting a brainwashed Career to believe it. The sponsors seem to _like_ Brock being cute with Jose, even more than they like his killer Career shit. For a couple days all they gotta do is be cute together and the Gamemakers leave them alone and the gifts keep coming.

They don’t need to look for food ‘cause they took some from the Cornucopia and they keep getting sent nice things to eat. Jose finds them sweet edible berries and points out the ones they can’t touch, anyway, just to show off for Brock.

Brock just hangs around him like a giant, reserved but affectionate, pussycat. He lets Jose feed him berries, kissing his fingers after he licks the juice off them.

He can ask Brock for a kiss whenever he feels like it. He never woulda dreamed he’d do that in the arena. Brock's private touchy side keeps slipping out when he forgets himself, until he notices and pulls back. Brock's arms around him are the closest he gets to not feeling afraid, forgetting why they here. One of the biggest threats in the Game is Jose's greatest comfort. 

When Brock goes to pee behind a bush Delly puts down her water bottle and gets a determined look.

“Jose, why is he still with us? What are you doing with him?” she asks, immediately cowering from the exertion of being brave.

“Girl, I don’t even know,” Jose nudges her and laughs. She don't laugh back, she's highly pressed.

“Girl, relax. We good. He ain’t all bad like them others.”

He leans in to whisper ‘cause he knows Brock wouldn’t appreciate him saying it out loud, “He cute.”

“But-- he’s still a _Career_ ,” Delly looks at him like he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has.

“That don’t matter,” he shrugs. “I like him. We can trust him.”

He fingers the stunning pink diamond under his collar, trying to hide his smile. He’s never seen something this beautiful in real life before.

Even if it was dull tin he’d be proud to wear a piece of Brock around his neck. _That he gave Jose voluntarily for luck_. As a _gift_. But this sure ain't dull or worthless. It's a _beautiful expensive gift._ The kind of gift he'd get from lovers in his wildest daydreams, when he thought about the old romance stories.

If they weren’t in an arena fighting for their lives he’d be starting to think his luck with boys was changing. 

“He’s dangerous,” Delly wrings her hands.

“Not to us he ain’t. Not yet.”

She ain’t convinced but he feels like he _knows_ Brock now. How could someone that careful about putting cream on his sore ass turn on them?

“Don’t stay pressed, girl, he knows I’d whoop his ass if he tried anything on you. You safe with us.”

He’s stopped waiting for Brock to turn around and kill them. He proved himself when he let them walk away from the Careers. Even before he followed. Jose gets all hot every time he thinks about Brock abandoning his plans with the Careers to spend a little more time with him. It's so romantic he could scream.

He’d like to think if Brock is gonna try and kill them now he’ll at least be cute about it. Give them a heads up and a sweet goodbye. 

His momma would whoop his ass for having such low standards from a boy. 


	10. Brock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, some fairly graphic descriptions of violence in this one. Kisses to your brains!

The weepy District 12 girl is killed by a rogue girl from District 5. 

They pass her sleeping alone and Brock is about to take her out when Jose stops him. 

After a ridiculous argument in which Jose keeps insisting it “ain’t right” to just kill her like that, Brock leaves her sleeping and walks away, because there is apparently no end to the amount of stupid choices he’ll make for the boy he likes.

He even offered to kill her so fast she wouldn’t feel it, chop her head off or something, while she was still asleep. 

Jose looked tempted at the idea of giving her a nice death, and as they debated it Brock started to feel crawling embarrassment at how he sounded standing around with his sword between his legs debating on how to make a kid’s death _nicer_. 

He got moody with Jose because it’s his fault Brock keeps slipping up and being like this. He's gotten under his skin and ruined his ability to close himself off and play his part. He hates how comfortable it’s getting to be dangerously soft. He's just about given up on maintaining the perfect tribute character he started with, but he can at least try to save enough face that he won't be a complete laughing stock in his District when he, hopefully, wins.

Jose said he didn’t trust Brock to give her a nice death in that mood, so he left her and stormed ahead, just so they could stop talking about it and reminding the sponsors how pathetic he’s acting. 

He took his shirt off and hacked at a tree ferociously for an hour. They didn't really need firewood he just wanted to display strength and aggression and the muscles he knows everyone likes in his back to try and win back some goodwill with the sponsors. 

Hours later they’re joking over the fire and hear a scream.

They turn around and see the District 12 girl with District 5’s knife at her throat. 

Brock leaps up to defend her, faster than Jose from years of honing battle instincts, but still too slow to stop the smooth slice across her neck.

Brock kills the District 5 girl with a clean stroke of his sword, her eyes still wide with shock, thinking she’d caught the District 12 girl alone. 

It feels more satisfying than a normal kill. Because he’s been on edge since not killing her earlier, like catching up on a missed step, but also because it’s to avenge Jose’s friend. He almost offers to maim her horribly for him, draw out a slow painful death for her, make her beg Jose for forgiveness. But he gets the feeling Jose wouldn’t appreciate it in the nice way he’d be doing it for him. It would probably upset him more.

He should probably have done it anyway, to give the sponsors a good show, after his lack of doing almost anything but kissing a cute boy the past couple days. But even though he knows he should, he’s more worried about the tremble in Jose’s lip. 

He holds Jose while he cries about the girl from his District. Listens quietly while he says things about her into the skin of Brock’s shoulder. 

“I feel so bad. I know her mom. She was our teacher. Everyone liked Delly. She was nice to everybody."

Brock squeezes his knee, and plays with the seam of his pants.

"It’s my fault. I told her she was safe with us," Brock offers Jose his sleeve to wipe his nose. He immediately regrets it and tries to wipe the snot off on a rock while he's distracted.

"She died while I was fucking around with you. I wasn’t looking out for her.”

“It’s not your fault,” he says as soft as he dares. 

He wants to say _she would have died anyway. She would have died sooner without you. She was weak, a burden on our resources_ , but he knows Jose wouldn’t like any of that so he just says, 

“It’s the Game. She had to die. At least it wasn’t you.”

Jose looks at him warmly. 

He worriedly runs it over in his head. Did he sound like he cares too much? It’s hard to tell how much he’s giving away when the inside of his brain is screaming with inconvenient feelings he has to keep trying to bury. Everything he does lately feels like both wonderful relief and scarily uncomfortable. 

Jose wants to do something for the dead girl from his District, to arrange her body like a respectable burial. He keeps murmuring about her family watching. This family he knows from home. His teacher Mrs Cartwright.

Brock stands with him while he puts flowers in the dead girl's hair, uncomfortable with the strange things that bubble inside him when he stops to look at a corpse like this, after hearing Jose talk about her. 

He doesn’t even remember how many kills were his in the bloodbath, and none of them had this treatment. Some of them wouldn’t have even been recognisable to their families in the state he left them. He was trained to put on a good show with kills. The finest training in all of Panem. He didn’t think about the kids they were, any more than he’d wonder about the personality of the cow if he got served steak at lunch. He thought about the job he was here to do: entertain the audience while he killed them.

He draws the line on tolerating sentimentality over the dead girl when Jose raises his hand, about to make some kind of salute. 

He snatches Jose’s hand out of the air so sharply Jose yells. He keeps it held in his fist so he can’t do anything stupid. 

He hasn’t spent this long making sure he stays alive to watch him get himself in trouble for stirring up inappropriate sentiments. 

Jose tries to wriggle his hand free.

“Don’t,” he says, cold serious warning in his tone. 

Jose looks surprised. He frowns and wriggles again. 

Brock squeezes him tighter in his fist, crushing his fingers, twisting his wrist, making him yell again.

“I’m serious. Don’t be stupid. You’re too smart for that.”

“What you talkin ‘bout? I ain’t gonna do nothing stupid," Jose looks up at him moodily, full of dangerous volatile feelings. 

Maybe things are different in District 12. Maybe he doesn’t know. If that’s true, Brock’s so glad he’s here. 

He can’t explain it though, not in front of the cameras. No one talks about it outright. He wills Jose with his eyes to understand. 

“Just promise me. If I let go. Promise you won’t do that with your hand. I’m sure you didn’t mean what it looked like,” he lies for him, glancing at the nearest camera involuntarily. “Just-- just promise me.”

Jose stares at him, furious. He stares back, not giving an inch. 

He’s stronger than Jose. He’ll keep his hand trapped for the rest of the Games if he has to. He’d cut it off before he let him do that in front of him.

“Why you all pressed like--” Jose trails off at his expression. 

He finally registers the urgency in Brock’s eyes, even though he’s still frowning like he doesn’t understand it.

He wills him to know what he can’t say. How dangerous saluting like that is. That he’s doing it because he cares. Because it would hurt him if Jose got himself in political trouble over something as pointless as a dead girl who wasn’t even that interesting. 

Jose sighs and deflates. 

“Fine. I promise."

If it was someone else Brock might still be wary, but he knows if Jose says _promise_ he means it.

He lets his hand go and Jose shakes it out, flexing it. 

“Ow, bitch,” he sulks at him.

He didn’t realize how tight he was holding him. He was so scared for him. 

Jose keeps his word. He sulks at Brock and walks away from the girl’s body, kicking at leaves, mad, but he doesn’t do anything controversial that could make the sponsors turn against him or get him in real trouble. 

Brock leaves him space to calm down. He sits on a log and thinks about the young couple he saw at a reaping once as a little kid. 

He’d never seen them in his District before, they didn’t have typical District 1 coloring, and they were dirty and badly groomed.

They ran up on stage during the reaping celebration as the volunteers were making their speeches and grabbed the microphone, started shouting about revolution, and did some kind of salute he’d never seen. 

They were still saluting when they were shot. 

They edited it out of the reaping broadcast but Brock remembers. Everyone at the academy for weeks after whispered how lucky they were to be killed so quickly, told stories about rebels who get their tongues cut out when they’re caught and tortured, forced to live as silent servants. Ang swore she knew someone who had one as a maid. 

Brock saw them himself in the Training Center before the Games.

Jose without a tongue unable to speak, having to follow orders, is the saddest thing Brock could imagine. Even worse than him dead. 

He can’t do anything about him dying in here but he’ll never let that happen to him. 

He realizes he can’t hear the crunch of Jose’s angry steps anymore. 

He jumps up, hand flying to the sword on his hip automatically, hurrying in the direction he stomped off. 

He reaches a clearing and Jose is there kneeling in front of a tree with his eyes closed, murmuring to himself. 

Some of the fear in Brock releases as soon as he sees him. He just hopes he’s not muttering anything stupid. Anything dangerous. 

“Come on, let’s go,” he says loudly, interrupting him abruptly, just in case. 

Jose turns around, irritated, but his eyes go wide when he sees Brock. 

Brock’s about to ask _what_? But Jose yells, “Brock!” and Brock’s fighting sense picks up where Jose's eyes dart over his shoulder, and the whoosh of air near his ear, and he spins, sword up, just in time to avoid Clove’s knife. 

“Brock. Glimmer misses you,” she sneers. “Well, _missed_ you.”

They heard another canon earlier. It must have been Glimmer. 

He finds he doesn’t feel much about it. Brock made sure all his female friends knew he was volunteering this year so they would try for a different year. He doesn’t really care one way or another about Glimmer but he’d be a wreck if he saw anything happen to Ang or Aurora.

Clove is obviously hoping it will throw him. 

He doesn’t even dignify it with a response. Obviously she’s here to fight, so he just gets in a fighting stance. 

His adrenaline kicks in, and he feels the calmest he has in days, as the familiar thrill hits. Finally he gets to do something he knows how to do well: fight. This is what he came for.

“I’m surprised at you, Brockie. You picked the losing team,” she looks so disgustingly sure of herself. 

“I guess we’ll see,” he grits out awkwardly, unused to the harder version of his voice he uses with them after giving it up the past couple days. 

“It was you who wanted that backwoods brat in the alliance. You started it. I remember. And then you run off together. What could _possibly_ be so interesting about the little idiot that you chose _him_ over _us_?”

Brock's heart pounds. She doesn’t know. She can’t. There’s no way they could have shown it to her. Right? 

The audience knows, he wishes they didn't but there's nothing he can do about it. But the other tributes don’t. And they’re not going to. They’d have a field day with it. 

“I’m looking forward to cutting my answers out of him,” Clove smiles indulgently, flipping her knife and catching it deftly. 

Rage flares in Brock’s gut, surprising him with its kick. He usually feels cool, empty and collected when fighting. He tries to push it away and concentrate.

He distantly wonders if he’s ever looked as arrogant as Clove. It’s not cute. He wouldn’t have even thought about that before--

She lunges at him and they go into a dance of swinging and dodging. 

He can duel in his sleep but half his attention becomes distracted. He realizes he can't hear Jose or see him and that leeches into his usually clear fighting performance mindset. He doesn't like not knowing where he is. He tries to look around for Cato and the others. The alliance might be still together and Clove might be a distraction, so they can get him.

He doesn’t want Jose fighting Cato. Even _he’s_ not confident he could beat Cato in hand to hand, one on one. Unless Jose has something none of them know about that got him that 11 from the judges he doesn’t want Cato anywhere near him. 

Knowing Jose he doesn’t trust he didn’t just sit down with the judges and sweet talk them into giving him a high score. 

It’s because he’s distracted trying to watch Jose. Clove is good but not _that_ good. Brock can dance circles around anybody with a sword in his sleep, it's what he _does_. There’s no way she’d beat him with full concentration. 

But he’s filled with horror when Clove kicks his sword out of his hand and lands on top of him, pinning his hips with her weight. Brock’s breath catches, furious with himself at how sloppy concern for Jose is making his instincts.

He reaches for his sword but it’s out of his grasp and he can’t throw her off, she squeezes him painfully. 

She smirks down at him triumphantly and he has the fleeting dumb thought that at least he doesn’t have to see Jose die now. 

Then he’s mad at himself for wasting his last thought on somebody else.

Then he hears crunching leaves, running feet, and an arrow pierces Clove’s heart, another goes through her throat, and he’s splattered with her blood. 

The knife falls from her dead hand and he hears Jose’s gravelly voice behind him.

“Fuck.”

He scrabbles out from under her and Jose’s hands are there pulling him to his feet. 

“You okay? Fuck. Fuck,” he looks shocked, he’s shaking, and he has his bow. 

Brock looks around the clearing but there’s no one else. 

Jose is pale and trembling. 

Brock has never seen him kill before. 

He thinks about how Jose wouldn’t let him kill the District 5 girl, how upset he was about the District 12 girl even though he was barely involved, how he never saw Jose kill with the Career alliance, and realizes that might have been Jose’s first ever kill. 

And he did it for him.

It’s hot.

He flushes warm with pride, flattered, all but swooning. He got Mr _It Ain’t Right_ to engage in bloodlust to save him. 

“You saved my life,” he looks at him heatedly. 

It makes his blood fizz in a deep primal way, sending a thrill through him. He reaches for Jose’s hips.

“Yeah,” Jose breathes weakly. “She had a bad attitude anyway.”

Brock laughs, relief flooding him. 

His stomach tenses a little when he sees Jose grin at a camera. 

When he looks back at Brock he’s serious. 

“Sorry I ran off. Nearly got you all cut up. Shit, baby. I’m real sorry.”

He drops his bow and his hands skate over Brock’s chest, checking for injuries. 

“It’s fine. I’m okay.” Brock grins coyly. “Thanks to you." 

He can yell at Jose about keeping his weapon with him at all times later. Right now he feels lightheaded and swoony from fighting adrenaline and Jose.

"It’s okay.” 

Because it is. One of their strongest competitors is out and they’re both still standing. 

“We’re okay,” he smiles indulgently.

“We okay,” Jose repeats. He puts his hands on Brock’s face, ignoring Clove’s blood, kissing him hard. 

It’s really fucking hot. His blood rushes and sings for him. He wonders if he could get Jose to kill for him again. 

They find a new spot to camp that night. 

Brock is, in all honesty, horny after that. He wants to kiss every inch of Jose’s powerful little muscles and suck his dick, even if they are being watched. 

But Jose keeps spacing out, weirdly quiet, very distressed about the events of the day. 

Brock puts an arm around him and starts talking to distract him.

He tries kissing his neck first, massaging his crotch over his tunic hopefully, but Jose frowns at him and shrugs him off, so he sticks to talking so he can at least keep an arm around him, lean into him and enjoy the earthy smell of his skin. He wore fragrance on the first day, so much of it it was a good thing he was allied with the Careers because they would have been able to track him from a hundred feet with how strong it was. The fragrance has all worn off now but he still smells good to Brock.

Brock is not very good at thinking of things to say when he has to talk to people, so he tells him about his District. 

He doesn’t have many memories outside the academy where he spent almost all his time, and it’s highly forbidden to reveal anything that could be perceived as details on District 1’s training to their competitors, but Jose’s eyes light up when Brock tells him about the diamond factory his dad manages that he got to visit once. Specializing in jewellery and ornaments made with pink diamonds, the only ones in Panem.

“Like your token,” Jose smiles, going soft. 

“Mmhm. When I win I’ll buy you an even bigger one,” he jokes.

Jose jokes back that _he’ll_ buy _Brock_ a big pink diamond when _he_ wins.

Then they both go quiet, thinking about how if either of them wins the other would have no use for diamonds.

It’s a dangerously weak chain of thought. 

Brock is still a little worried about what Jose might have muttered when he stormed off angry.

So he uses the opportunity to talk more about how hard his dad works, how much he loves the Capitol, what an honor it is to work hard to serve Panem. 

All the loyalist bullshit he’s been raised to believe. 

He and his friends know it’s bullshit, the way any teen knows something adults force down their throat is bullshit. He thinks his parents know it’s bullshit too, though he’s never asked. It’s not the kind of thing anyone talks about. You learn to bottle your feelings like normal people. 

He and his friends also know when to spout loyalist sentiment like they mean it to look good. And Brock is a perfect competitor. He delivers it with practiced poise. 

He can feel Jose wanting to roll his eyes as soon as he catches on to what Brock’s doing. He gives him a pleading look and squeezes his hands hard enough that he just sighs and lets Brock talk. 

When a parachute floats down with a pink diamond he’s glad he made the right choice. 

He kisses the diamond in front of a camera, hoping his family are watching and proud of him for trying to do the right thing, be a perfect citizen. 

“Now we match,” Jose grins, pulling Brock’s token out of his tunic and kissing it, eyes dancing at Brock. 

He probably should have asked for that back by now. 

But Jose looks so adorably happy about it. Brock sees him stroking it with a quiet little light in his eyes when he thinks Brock isn’t looking. He hasn’t had the heart to take that pleased smile away from him. 

“We do,” Brock smiles fondly. 

It’s not like he can’t get plenty more diamonds at home, if he ever makes it back.

They chat late into the night, Jose snuggled into his side. He can tell Jose is lying when he talks about District 12, because he can read Jose like a book now. He just can’t tell what he’s lying about, what the truths might be, what crazy and probably illegal things he’s actually been doing out there. 

Looking into Jose’s twinkling eyes as he talks softly, Brock almost forgets where they are. When they start shivering a parachute appears with a blanket for them. 

It surprises him. They got so cozy he forgot people were watching. He keeps doing that when they're together.

“Thank y’all for the blanket. Me and my boo Brock, we real grateful,” Jose smiles cutely right to camera. 

He hasn’t forgotten. He never seems to forget for a second.

Brock looks at him and wonders if he might be the more ruthless of the two of them. 

Brock curls around him from behind to sleep, putting his back to the mouth of the cave because he has better reflexes and Jose is sad tonight. 

He can be nice when he wants to, he's not a _monster_. 

And _he’s_ not the one winking at cameras like he’s in a stage play.

When they’re cuddled up to sleep he puts his mouth to Jose’s ear and whispers as quietly as he can,

“Hey. Are we real? Or for the Game?” 

He won’t blame him if it’s for the cameras, it’s a smart strategy, but he has to know. Before he makes any more stupid decisions for him.

Jose turns and shifts in his arms until he can put his mouth to Brock’s ear. 

“Real,” he hears, gravelly and whisper soft, tickling his ear lobe. “For me.”

Jose looks up at him expectantly, raising his eyebrows. 

Brock leans down to put his mouth on Jose’s ear again. If the cameras are looking it might be obvious they’re doing something but he likes at least the illusion that they can’t hear, that this is private and they’ll tell each other the truth. 

“Me too,” he whispers. 

Jose smiles hopefully at him. Brock hopes he believes him. 

In the middle of the night he’s woken by sniffling. Jose's little body is shuddering.

He’s crying. Not just a few tears, like over the dead girl. A lot. Big, hacking sobs. 

“Shhh, shhh,” Brock whispers, panicked. 

He desperately hopes there’s something else going on in the arena, so the cameras somehow miss this. 

Jose keeps sobbing. Brock’s heart sinks. What is he supposed to do now, with this?

He can’t stay in an alliance with a kid noticeably falling apart, letting emotions control him, no matter how cute he is. It’s suicide. It will make him look weak to the sponsors, the audience, his mentors, his whole district. Even if he won he’d be shamed for the rest of his life.

It’s the first thing you learn at the academy, as soon as you can talk: don’t cry. Don’t show your weaknesses. 

Jose cries harder and Brock squeezes him firmly.

“Shhhh,” he breathes, horrified, because the sound of Jose crying is making his eyes prickle, a lump growing in his throat.

He puts his hand over Jose’s mouth to shut him up and Jose sobs wetly into it.

“I don’t wanna die,” he gasps, muffled, into Brock's hand, shaking in Brock’s arms. 

This is really bad. He should just go stand in front of the Cornucopia and yell, _“Kill me please!”_

Brock holds Jose tighter to stop the trembling, squeezing so hard it probably hurts him. His mind races for something to make him shut up. He is not good at feelings. He’s avoided them most of his life, like a good trainee tribute, he doesn’t know what to do with them. This past two weeks is probably the most he’s ever felt in his life.

He guesses he has to try to comfort him. 

He leans close to his ear hoping the cameras won’t catch him being too nice in response to this show of weakness. 

What he thinks he’s gonna say is _I don’t want to die either_ but what he accidentally whispers is,

“I don’t want you to die either.”

He wants to kick his stupid subconscious. 

It’s not like it’s untrue. But it’s not something he should be saying, especially now. It’ll only make things harder. 

Jose gasps loudly and cries more. 

Brock wants to smash his head into the rocks. 

He reasons with the part of himself that wants to smother Jose and leave. Or ridicule him and tell him he’s done with him. Those voices in his head don’t sound like his. They sound like his trainers at the academy. The leaders of his District. The men in his family. The world outside him. No matter how much those voices want him to, he can’t make his arms unclench from around Jose. 

He _has_ just lost his District partner, the smaller voice in his mind that sounds more like his own argues for Jose. He obviously liked her more than Brock cares about Glimmer. It’s not _completely_ weak of him to have a moment of upset over that. 

He’s obviously a sensitive boy, wanting to spare the lives of kids he doesn’t even know for no apparent reason, and he had his first kill today. Brock thought it was gorgeous and spectacular, but he was shaken by it.

Brock has a vague memory of being a sensitive boy when he was very small. It was trained out of him so young he can hardly remember it, other than the gut instinct that crying is the worst thing you can do. He can kind of remember trying to hold a butterfly because it was pretty. When his trainer saw he made Brock squash it in his fist. So he'd see it was just a fragile mess of legs and bug parts, not beautiful and powerful, like him.

Jose has spent a lot of his time here being cute with the cameras and avoiding doing dirty work. He’s such a wild optimist, in his own little world, in ways Brock finds as delightful as he does strange. Maybe reality is just hitting him now. 

Brock has to believe if he allows Jose this moment of weakness he’ll pull himself together by morning. Surely anyone who plays up to the cameras as well as he does is smart enough to know he has to keep it together.

Jose’s crying quiets to sniffles. He sounds so small and pathetic the voices in Brock’s head yell at him to leave again.

Brock slides his hand up underneath Jose’s tunic. He lets it rest over his heartbeat, so he can feel it.

He’ll give him ‘til morning to get it together. 

It wouldn’t make sense to travel in the dark anyway. It’s the sensible thing to stay, he tells the disapproving voices fiercely, Jose’s pulse strong under his palm. 

Part of him still wants to get up and leave right now but he can’t tear his hand away from the warm reassuring beat of Jose’s heart. 

Alive, alive, alive.

He tells himself he’ll leave at dawn if Jose is still acting like this. 

He hopes he’ll get it together before daylight and they can both just pretend this didn’t happen and pray the cameras were elsewhere. 

It takes him a long time to fall asleep. Long after Jose turns around and presses his damp face into Brock’s chest and finally shuts up. 

His mind races and he puts his nose in Jose’s hair, smelling his scalp, so he can remember it if he’s sleeping alone tomorrow night. It’s comforting enough that he eventually drifts off himself.

He wakes up to the sound of Jose chattering animatedly and turns over his shoulder to see him at the mouth of the cave talking right into a camera like it’s an old friend, making jokes, making fun of himself getting stressed out and crying last night. 

Brock flops on his back, lightheaded with relief that he doesn't have to leave him. 


	11. Jose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer that I don't know about the accurate progression of leg injuries, and didn't research it.

Brock got a cut on his leg from the fight. They don’t notice it til morning when Jose is thirsting over his naked back muscles and checking out his ass and spots a line of blood on his pants. 

He don't know how Brock didn't even feel it. Brock shrugs like it's normal to get hurt and says, "Adrenaline probably."

If it was his leg he'd be screaming about it but Brock just twists to try and see it, pokes it curiously, and says, "Oh," no louder than normal.

Jose asks the cameras real cute for disinfectant, a needle and thread, but they don’t get shit. No parachutes. 

For the first time he starts to feel alone, like the audience might not be on his side. It’s scary. 

Everything hit him last night. He would kill a million Cloves to save Brock but shit is getting real and he don’t like it. He don’t like being a murderer, and he wants Delly’s soft shy laugh across the fire from him, and he don’t want it to be him who’s next. 

It feels like any of them could die at any moment and that ain’t in his great plan for stardom and excellence, thanks bitch. 

Over the next couple days Brock’s cut gets all pussy and Brock gets a fever. He gets so out of it he can’t even make fun of Jose which is real worrying. 

They stop moving around and set up in a cave near water where Brock can rest.

Jose sits with Brock’s head in his lap and tries to make little braids in his hair to entertain himself, strokes his curls away from his hot face, presses a wet cloth to his forehead, makes him keep drinking. 

“You should leave me,” Brock grits out through clenched teeth. “I’m holding you back.”

“I ain’t going nowhere,” Jose says softly. He leans down and kisses his cheek. 

Brock looks up at him and through the haze there’s wonder in his eyes.

“You’re stupid,” he says dreamily, smiling dazed and dopey. “It's a bad move for you. You should go.”

“I know,” Jose cards his fingers through his sweat damp curls. “But I ain’t gonna leave you.”

"I'd leave," Brock pants, "If it was you." 

That stings. He wonders if he really would or if he's tryna provoke him so he'll go.

No point in kidding himself, he probably would.

But he did come running after him. Sometimes Brock can be surprising.

It don't matter anyway.

"I don't care. I ain't leaving. Stop complaining and get better."

Brock smiles weakly.

The camera clicks as it focuses on him stroking Brock’s cheek. 

He looks at it and finds his flow, all improvisato, does a little monologue. He talks about how he thought Brock was fine as hell from the moment he saw him, how cute he looked in training swinging that big ass sword around, how much fun he is when he’s shady. How he’s hotter than any boy he ever saw in his District. How it might sound stupid when they could die any minute but he’s grateful for the Games because without them he never woulda met Brock. They brought them together, found him the perfect boy, and now he gets to be with the cutest boy in the arena. Brock’s crazy if he think he ever gonna leave, not when he treats him so sweet even though he pretends to be all tough.

He pauses for breath, biting his tongue on that thought ‘cause it might make Brock mad at him. He gets kinda carried away when he’s in the moment feeling his jush. 

When he looks up he sees a parachute coming with his disinfectant and needle, and medicine for Brock’s fever. 

He’s so relieved he launches into another whole monologue for the camera, narrating the process of stitching Brock up, glad he learned to sew from his momma even though Gale said it was girly. 

He makes sure he talks real loud this time, even louder than usual, to cover the little whimpering noises Brock makes as he tries to lie still, biting into Jose’s balled up tunic, and squeezing his thigh like a stress ball, while the needle goes through his flesh. He knows his tough District 1 man wouldn’t want them to hear his weakness. 

A day later Brock is up and walking, back to teasing him. He’s still looking at Jose with that quiet awed gratitude but he’s also telling him to shut up sometimes so he’s pretty much back to normal. 

They move to a new spot and Jose shows off hunting for dinner with his bow to make Brock clap for him. 

There’s a Feast announced. They don’t go. They don’t need shit. The sponsors have been good to them. 

Brock gets antsy when it’s announced. Jose can tell his Career brain is ticking, wanting to go jump into the big fight for some glory. 

He puts a hand firmly on Brock’s wrist and says, “We ain’t going, right?” 

Brock swallows.

“Right,” he nods, and squeezes Jose’s hand. 

The next night they’re sat around eating when they see the last three faces in the sky. They heard canons earlier but they argued over whether it was two or three, didn’t want to acknowledge the truth of it. 

Jose knew it was coming, he’s known it the whole time, since the very first knock on his door, but still he ain’t ready.

It’s just him and Brock left. 

The other Careers killed each other and everyone else is gone. Now it’s down to two and they’re the two. 

He shoulda guessed it. If he was watching a TV show, he’d want this to be the ending. 

He imagines if he _was_ watching, if he hadn’t been reaped this year, the huge crush he woulda had on Brock. The way he woulda cheered for him on his victory tour, making sure he got a spot in the front like he did for Finnick Odair. 

He thinks he shoulda told Brock that. He woulda thought it was cute. Or told him the other cute shit he said when he was all delirious with fever again so he could hear it. 

But it’s too late to talk about any of that shit now. 

When the last face fades from the sky they look at each other for a long time. He slowly puts down his food.

“What if we both--” he starts softly, not even really knowing where he’s going, just hoping, but Brock immediately tenses. 

“No,” his eyes go cold, starting to close to him. 

He sees the boy he’s gotten to know shut down in front of him until he’s just looking at a competitive Career. 

He can’t help a miserable sigh. 

“Don’t make this harder. You know what happens now.” Brock swallows heavily. 

“I told you I’d do it. I want to win.”

He drops his food and jumps up, gets in a fighting stance. 

They really doing it right now, huh? This is it.

He wonders what Brock would do if he just says no and refuses to fight him. 

Or if he just turns and runs away. Would Brock chase him? Could he get away from Brock quick enough? 

But then what? He’d watch Brock from up a tree for a couple days before they’d be back to this again. If Brock tried to trick him by acting cute and asking for one more kiss he already knows he’d fall for it. 

Brock draws his sword in an elegant sweep.

Jose watched him draw that sword so many times, thinking how sexy and powerful he looked.

This time he can’t enjoy it because Brock’s drawing it against him. 

At least he don’t dive at him right away, like he knows Brock could. 

Brock waits expectantly, face blank.

So he’s gonna let him fight back. Make it fair. Be a gentleman about it. 

It’s fucked up how cute he finds that.

Jose reluctantly brings his bow up, pulls an arrow back. 

He hates this. 

Jose tries to look at Brock, wants to see that he hates it too. They’re in it together.

Brock won’t meet his eyes no more. He looks off to the side of his head, like he don’t even see him. All focussed. 

“You do your best, I’ll do my best, right?” He tries to get his attention. 

Brock flinches and ignores him. 

“I’m going to win,” he mutters. 

He sees how bad he wants to win. He thinks it might be more about winning for Brock than staying alive even. He worked his whole life for this moment of glory. 

He sees him wrestling with himself over whether he can kill Jose to get it. 

Jose aims at his chest. If he gets a clean shot the arrow will pierce his heart. 

Like he did to Clove. 

Brock will look like she did dead. Blood splattered all over his beautiful face. 

He ain’t gonna fire first. 

Brock will have to start it. 

He ain’t attacking unless it’s in self defence. He’s always stuck to that principle in here and of all people he ain’t about to betray it for Brock.

Brock circles around him, doing some fancy ass footwork, delaying making a move. Shifting his ass side to side pointlessly. Not coming at him yet.

Deep down he knows Brock is probably a better fighter than him, technically more well trained. He’s gonna do his best but he ain’t stupid and a bow can't really do shit in close combat. He should be running. 

But his feet can’t leave him.

Jose tracks him with the arrow. 

He ain’t gonna fire first. 

The taut bowstring cuts into his fingers. 

Brock dithers his ass around. Swallows hard and sucks on his lip without noticing he’s doing it. 

Jose notices. He knows Brock so well now. After all this shit they been through together Brock feels like a part of him, an extension of himself.

He ain’t gonna fire at all. 

He don’t want to. 

It hits him real clear like a truck. 

He can’t control what Brock does but as he looks at his wide blue eyes, frantic and lost and scared, he suddenly realizes it’s an easy choice for him. 

He really really really really _really_ don’t wanna die.

But he can’t kill somebody he loves. 

Yeah, loves. He ain't fooling nobody at this point.

There ain’t no way he can do it. 

The surety of it makes a weird grown up kinda calm come over him. 

He still don’t wanna die any more than he did a second ago but if he ain’t got his principles he ain’t got shit. 

He lowers his bow, lets the arrow drop. 

“Okay,” he says, soothing. “Do it.”

Brock’s eyes fly back to his face again. Suddenly less interested in the air next to him, actually listening. 

_“What? What are you talking about?”_

He looks at Jose like he wants to tell him not to do something stupid. 

But he ain’t gonna this time. And Jose don’t care. He’s doing it anyway. 

He puts his bow on the ground and stands there empty handed, his life in Brock’s hands, ready for whatever happens. 

His heart is full of hope, like it always is, but he ain’t stupid. He knows what gotta happen now. 

Maybe _this_ was always meant to be his story. He was loved. Adored by the audience. _Something_ -ed at least by Brock. 

He’ll be remembered. Everyone will know his name. Like he always thought they should back in District 12 when he was just a loud annoying kid. That’s something. It’s a kind of win. 

That could be enough, right?

“Ma, I love you,” he says, looking up and hoping the cameras get him. 

“I’m sorry. I love everyone. Tell them all for me.” His chin quivers, trying not to cry. 

“What are you--?” Brock cuts himself off and shakes his head. Wrestles the shock off his face. 

His eyes get harder, like ice, like grey stones. 

But he still don’t move his feet. 

He grits his teeth.

He raises his sword higher, ready to strike. 

His hands start shaking. 

Jose hears all the little clicks and whirrs of the cameras making sure they got the best angle. 

“Brock, I love you too,” he says to the beautiful scared boy in front of him. 

It’s for Brock, only Brock, but he makes sure the cameras got his good side, gives them a show, just in case. 

_“What_?” Brock says again but it’s a whisper this time and his voice cracks. 

“It’s okay. You win, boo. I love you.”

He squeezes his eyes shut so he dont have to watch. 

He hopes Brock will make it quick and clean. Hold him close as he dies so he can have something nice to go out with. 

Brock’s hands shake so hard he drops his sword. 

Jose’s eyes shoot open again at the clatter.

Brock jumps back from it on the ground and gasps and there are tears in his eyes. They’re not hard and icy at all, they’re deep oceans of feeling. 

He lunges forward and barrels into Jose, grabbing him. 

Jose thinks _this is it_ , lets himself be pulled in and fall to the ground, don’t fight back. But Brock’s not wrestling him or choking him, he’s kissing him. Mouth insistent and desperate against his, tears wet against his cheeks. 

“I can’t, I can’t,” he’s murmuring, and Jose’s heart soars. 

He kisses back with a passionate fury, even though he knows they ain’t got time for this and one of them has to die now. Nothing else matters no more. Every beat of his heart is a gift. Every touch of Brock’s lips is precious. 

“I can’t, I-- I-- do too, me too,” Brock gasps and they keep kissing, rolling in the grass. 

It ain’t quite high romance but it’s more of a declaration of love than he ever imagined he’d get from Brock.

Gale always said Jose has a sixth sense for getting shot at, from when Gale and his brothers used to fuck around and shoot at him out past the fence before they taught him how to use a bow himself. 

He thanks his sixth sense for kicking in even when he’s lost in sweet kisses. 

His hand shoots out automatically and grabs an arrow, stopping it in its tracks inches before it pierces Brock’s throat. 

He flings the arrow away and rolls them, pressing Brock into the ground, their bodies tense with alertness, Brock’s eyes wide and terrified beneath him. 

They slowly sit up, looking around for the source. Jose feels sick, the joy of a second ago disappearing in a wave of dread. 

If they ain’t gonna kill each other, the arena is gonna do it for them. 

He shoulda seen that coming. He’s watched every Games. The Gamemakers been so cute to them this whole time he didn’t even think about it. 

They ain’t never had a love story like theirs on a Games before. He stupidly thought it meant they were getting a pass. 

Another arrow comes at them, heading for Brock’s throat again.

Brock throws himself flat and rolls out of its path, a narrow miss. 

They’re all firing at _him_. 

Brock realizes it the same time Jose does and looks at him, bittersweet. 

“It’s me. Nobody wants you to die.”

He looks at the cameras, resigned. 

Jose’s defences shoot up, even fiercer than on his own behalf. 

“No! I don’t want _you_ to.”

After all the shenanigans he played up for the cameras, turns out his brilliant plan worked too good. 

“One of us has to. Only one of us can win. You did it, baby. You won.”

Brock tries to smile at him but he’s crying. 

He looks real sad and Jose hates this. 

“No! _No!”_ Jose feels like a little kid throwing a tantrum but he’s mad and upset and they’re tryna kill the only boy who's ever been this nice to him. The secretly sweetest shady boy he knows he’ll never find anyone else to replace.

“You can’t die now. After everything. You can’t! This some bullshit! Y’all listening?” He snaps, whipping around and pointing at the nearest camera. 

He wants to yell, tell them they wrong, but when he opens his mouth what bubbles up is grief.

“Please?” His voice breaks, he knows he must look pathetic. “I can’t keep my baby?”

A flurry of parachutes start falling, so many they get tangled and look like a cloud, but he don’t even look at them.

He looks back at Brock and feels his heart break at the fear and resignation on his face. 

“They don’t want me. You’re the star boo.”

“ _I_ want you. You can’t die. We supposed to be together.” 

He don’t mean it to sound like a lame ass song lyric, he’s just in his feelings, but music starts blaring from the sky as soon as he says it. 

They whip their heads around. 

Another arrow heading for Brock stops in the air in front of him and drops to the ground. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, for the first time in history, your joint winners of the 74th annual Hunger Games, Jose and Brock!” booms around the arena in a mechanical voice.

They stare at each other. Then at the hovercraft when it descends, heading for them. 

They can’t believe it. 

Nothing like this has ever happened before. It seems too good to be true. 

Is it some kinda trick to finish them off with extra drama?

Jose scrambles to pick up his bow and hold Brock’s hand, edging closer to him as the hovercraft nears. 

Brock puts his body in front of him, hand on the hilt of his sword. He don’t even realize he’s doing it. All sexy and protective. Jose is still dizzy with happiness that Brock couldn’t kill him, this don’t touch my man moment is too much.

A sparkling banner, displaying “We’re Supposed To Be Together: The 74th Games,” materializes above them, shocking Jose as his words from seconds ago shine at him like they were scripted.


	12. Brock

They huddle together to get picked up.

Jose clings tight around his shoulders. Brock holds his precious body close, feels his heart beat against him, can’t stop smelling the crook of his neck, can’t stop crying that he’s alive, they're both alive together. 

It’s impossible and it happened. He should’ve known Jose’s crazy brilliance would find a way to do what no one else has done before.

He hides his face in Jose’s shoulder as much as he can, desperately ashamed of himself and his disgusting, weak tears. District 1 boys aren't supposed to cry at all, let alone in public. 

District 1 boys aren’t supposed to hesitate either. 

He’s never fumbled a kill like that. He should never have let himself get this close to Jose. He should have known this would happen. 

Now it’s too late. He failed at the one thing he’s supposed to be the best at. 

If this hovercraft isn't a trick then they’ve won, but he still failed. He’ll probably be a laughing stock forever, the shame of his District.

It feels uncomfortable, awful, but at the same time it doesn't feel like failure. Half of him is furious with himself but the other half can't care about it as much as he knows he's supposed to.

He feels like he’s been cracked open, into a version of himself he only half recognizes.

His mind is flooded with sentimental images and the feelings that go with them. All his favorite nice things, like his mom’s kind smile and Ang’s eyes when she throws her head back and laughs and Jose Jose Jose. 

He can’t help being ashamed of going against everything he’s ever known though. This isn’t a small excusable slip, he really fucked up. He can’t help worrying, wondering what his trainers will say. His parents. His mentors. The audience. 

He didn’t die so now he has to face them all for everything he’s done in here.

He’s not perfect anymore. And who even _is_ Brock if he isn’t the perfect tribute? 

His whole life has been training to win the Games. If he’s brutally honest, the deep-down pragmatist in him often thought that’s _all_ his life would be. But it didn’t end in the arena. He did it. He won. Everything he worked for is done. 

So what will he do now?

 _Living_ is something he never prepared for.

But he can’t make himself feel anything but relief that Jose is alive. Relief and worry, this sickening worry for him that’s been creeping up since the first time they kissed, almost stronger than his fear for himself. 

Even when they’re settled and fussed over in the hovercraft he’s worried. 

Brock worries about everything, but this isn’t normal, even for him. His senses are on high alert, he can’t switch his defensiveness off. It feels like they could still be attacked at any moment, like this is all a trick to lull them into relaxing and they’ll be tossed back to the arena the moment they do. 

He looks into Jose’s soulful eyes, watching him intently. His little body is coiled with tension like he’s ready to fight anyone who comes near them with his bare hands. 

Brock tries to smile at him. Tries to breathe normally. Tries not to care that he threw away everything for him. 

Jose’s smile tentatively grows.

It was worth it.

They get taken back to the Training Center and their teams try to separate them but Jose growls at anyone who comes near them. Literally growls. 

“Y’all heard me in that arena, play the tapes, I ain’t leaving him.”

“Aww! That was my favorite part of the whole Games! I screamed at my TV,” a green girl from his prep team gushes.

They take his bow and Brock’s sword away. He clings to Jose and does his best to look threatening with no weapon. 

“Brock,” Cashmere comes up behind them coolly, placing a hand on his shoulder that makes him flinch. 

She looks at him for a long time and he can’t tell if she’s glad he half-won or angry with him. 

“Congratulations,” she says eventually, and he can breathe a little easier.

“Oh, yes! It all kicks off now,” Jose’s mentor slurs drunkenly from the doorway. 

“You know I had seven other Districts helping me with your fucking parachutes?” is his greeting to Jose. 

“Good thing your boyfriend here bumped their kids off early so they had time on their hands,” he salutes Brock with the bottle.

Jose blushes and fidgets at the word boyfriend.

“New gifts every two minutes. Fucking ridiculous. It was the fucking Parachute Games!” 

His mentor burps, disgustingly loud.

“At least you conned them out of a fuckload of their money. Cheers to that!” he sips from his bottle and shoves it into Jose’s hand. 

“Have a drink. You’ll need it.”

Jose beams at him and gives him a hug, because Jose is ridiculous and way too nice to stupid people. 

He watches Jose greet his prep team like old friends. Jose seems so happy to see them. Brock smiles and nods politely at his own team. Jose hugs his head stylist the most warmly and tugs Brock by the hand to introduce him. 

“Brock, come prepare for your interview on the first floor, where you belong,” Cashmere says, in the tone trainers use when an order is presented as a suggestion. “All our victors are gathered down there, drinking a toast to you.”

Well, that’s terrifying. 

Who knows what they think of him after what they saw. He made some decent kills early on in the bloodbath and with the Careers. And at least he never looked ugly. But his, for lack of a better word, _emotional breakdown_ by the end-- He can’t imagine not being mocked for it.

“Brock. Don’t you want to come raise a glass with us?” Cashmere taps her heel impatiently.

Brock looks at her. He spent hundreds of hours with her in coaching sessions before the Games. She looks like a stranger now. 

“I want to stay with him,” he answers quiet but firm, curling around Jose like a limpet. 

They can’t split up. He’s the only thing helping Brock feel even marginally okay. 

Brock is not 100% sure this all isn’t an elaborate VR experience and they’re really still in the arena. And if they are, he needs to keep Jose close. 

He’s already disappointed his mentors with that embarrassing display of emotion, he may as well be honest about what he wants now.

Cashmere looks unimpressed, but she doesn’t reprimand him. 

She leaves him with their prep teams, muttering with Jose’s mentor, the drunk, about how the audience won’t be happy they won’t get their reunion on stage. 

Brock doesn’t care what people want. He’s had enough of doing what they want.

He probably burned all his bridges with that performance, so fuck everyone and what they want from now on. 

Neither of them have serious injuries, and their parachutes of food were so frequent they’re not starving or dehydrated, so their interview can go ahead soon, tomorrow. 

Brock can hear the crowds cheering outside through the walls of the Training Center. He wonders if they’ll be out there all night. 

This is not how he expected to feel if he won the Games.

He can hardly string two coherent thoughts together, and he doesn’t know what to think about what happened, he has no idea how he’ll be able to present a poised perfect interview. He hopes Jose has enough of his magic charm left to carry them both through it if all he can offer right now is being pretty.

They stay huddled together as much as they can as their prep teams fuss around plucking and polishing them, gushing about how cute they are, how much everyone loves them. 

In other circumstances they both enjoy getting made over, looking cuter, but Brock feels too jittery to be comfortable and seeing Jose on edge too makes him feel worse.

He doesn’t know what to say to all their teams’ comments about how adorable they are together. 

It feels weird. 

It’s a relief to hear his weakness was endearing to the public. He thinks his trainers and mentors will still probably be mad at him but at least he’s not a complete failure as a winner. 

But it’s odd to be showered with praise just for being cute with Jose. 

No one compliments any of his kills, or his swordsmanship, or their strategy. They don't even praise how hot his body looked or how beautiful his face was. All they can talk about is the _love story._

Brock usually loves getting recognition but being recognised for a relationship with a boy rather than an actual achievement feels strange and uncomfortable. The one thing he thought he did wrong, wished he could have hidden, and it turned out to be everyone’s favorite thing he did in there. Even next to all his excellent kills.

When their teams have to strip them down to polish their skin, someone mentions privacy and someone else giggles _it’s not like they haven’t seen it all before!_ And then everyone is giggling, like their lives are some hilarious gossip.

He wishes he and Jose could have a moment alone, to get their heads straight. Talk about how crazy this all is. Discuss whether they’re really safe. 

He was raised to be ready for the glory of this win but now all he wants is to hide in Jose’s arms. To not have to think about what everyone is thinking about them for just one second. But even when their teams pause for breath, they can still hear the shouts of the crowd, the chants of their names.

Every time he has to move away from Jose for them to fix or pin something feels unbearable.

“Ah, the happy couple,” the mood in the room changes at the cool voice behind them. 

They turn to see President Snow in the doorway. 

Jose jumps in surprise and instinctively grabs at Brock. 

Mr Snow looks at where his hand rests on Brock’s arm and flashes a predatory smile. 

“Mr President! Aw, shit. You mad we didn’t kill each other? That ain’t no good for your TV show.”

Mr Snow beams, delightedly patronizing, like Jose is a dog walking on its hind legs.

Brock’s protective instinct flares like a scream. He shifts closer, scanning the room for something that could be a weapon.

“Ah, yes, a young man who understands the game. You’ve played it wonderfully,” Mr Snow beams at Jose but there’s no warmth in it. 

“And you, Brock, a fine specimen representing our most beautiful district,” his eyes gleam at Brock like he’s appraising a diamond. 

Brock bows his head demurely out of habit. 

“Now the real fun begins for you two. I admit I initially was concerned at the disregard of Game rules. But you two caused quite a stir in Panem. Have you heard? There’s a crowd all the way across the Plaza. They’ve been chanting for you for days. Capitol citizens have been beating down the door of our Head Gamemaker’s office, flooding the lines with calls, demanding you both live.”

Jose’s eyes are wide. He looks at Brock, lost, like even he’s surprised they had that kind of power. 

"Brock, your father's business is booming. Everybody wants a pink diamond on a chain." 

"Oh," Brock blinks, "That's-- great." It's strange, but if he's brought good things for his dad's business, he's happy about that.

“Yes, it seems this is the best outcome for all of us. You have each other,” his nose wrinkles as though the thought of it is dirty to him. Brock’s arm tightens around Jose’s waist.

“And I have a great many people eager to meet you both. _Together_.”

He looks them up and down appraisingly. There’s no outright threat in his words, so why does it feel like he’s threatening them?

Brock has been trained to recognize a gauntlet being thrown as instinctively as breathing but he can’t work out _what_ the gauntlet is. 

“The people have spoken! They want you two on their screens. They liked what they saw in the arena. We have exciting opportunities for you to give them _more_ of it.”

Jose beams, like that’s a good thing. Is it? Their most recent _exciting opportunity_ was a nightmare. 

And more of _what_? Fighting? Doing what he trained for? What he volunteered to do because he wanted to show the world his excellence? Or just-- being with Jose on camera? Because it sounds like what people want is the one thing Brock doesn't know how to do or feel comfortable with at all.

Just be a person and have some kind of relationship with a boy he likes. 

Brock wanted glory, at the beginning, but now he doesn’t know _what_ he wants. Not this.

“That nonsense you shouted saved your lives. It’s a message we can use.”

Jose raises his eyebrows at him, confused and pleased. 

Of course. He feels a familiar involuntary kick in his gut, jealous and impressed. It took Brock a whole evening to stumble through a politically appropriate sentiment about Panem. Jose apparently did it in a few seconds of frantic yelling. Brock wonders if before he met him Jose spent his whole life accidentally saying the right thing too. 

“Do make sure you’re well dressed well for the party tomorrow. I have a few _friends_ I’d like you to meet,” Mr Snow smiles slowly. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to repay our merciful citizens of the Capitol for sparing both your lives by sharing a little of your _charm_ and attention.”

“You got it Mr President. We gon’ do great for you,” Jose is earnest and enthusiastic, almost bouncing on his toes. 

Brock’s stomach drops. Jose doesn’t get it. He thinks they have something to prove. He’s in winning people over mode. He’s not hearing the threat, the shapeless danger Brock can feel in the air.

Mr Snow smiles a terrifying smile.

“Excellent. I have a lot of interest. Your _performance_ during the Games was very-- _compelling_.” 

Brock’s mind races trying to figure it out. It feels like he’s dropping them clues about something. Jose just smiles brightly. 

“We gon’ keep all the nice folks happy. Whatever you need. We real grateful, baby, right?” Jose looks up at him smiling and Brock can’t find his voice so he just nods. 


	13. Jose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The disability related slur in this chapter does not represent the opinion of the author!

Jose is creeped out by the President but at least he smell good. Like flowers.

It ain’t his fault. Everything feels off and scary right now, fresh out of the arena. Every time someone comes near him he automatically jumps and reaches for Brock.

He’s getting a bad vibe from the whole conversation but he puts it down to his nerves. 

This is the _President_. They gotta put their nerves aside and make him like them just like they made everybody else fall in love with them. Whatever he suggests, they needa do it and be cute about it.

They gotta show them Gamemakers they done the right thing saving them both, and the audience they made the right choice asking for it. 

They’re the newest big celebrities. The President is already talking about putting them back on TV. They’re gonna be _stars_. Maybe they’d give him his own show one day, like Caesar Flickerman. They can live a life Jose dreamed of if they can show they’re willing and easy to work with. 

It don’t feel real. They’re still together. They got through the arena alive and they’re standing in front of the President.

He can kiss Brock whenever he wants. Not just for a couple more days. _Forever_. He gets to live and to keep his baby and be a celebrity. He gets it all. 

He’s so lucky. Dreams really do come true.

He’s so grateful. Whatever cute schmoozing they gotta do now is worth it. It’ll be nothing compared to what they done already. 

From what he’s seen it’s just a bunch of publicity and fancy parties and shit. Advertising things in the Capitol. Travelling around and meeting people. It looks fun whenever he’s seen tributes doing shit. 

They’re gonna be rich and famous and celebrated. 

He can move his momma into one of the big pretty houses in Victor’s Village. His brothers can have their own bedrooms, whole rooms to themselves _each_. Gale will call him conceited but he’ll be so gagged they got everyone food for a year. He’ll get to visit the Capitol and tour the country and wear cute new custom clothes. Maybe he can design them himself. Maybe he can get Flavius to dye his hair or Octavia to help him get an ink design on his skin like the Capitol people. 

He wonders if Brock will visit him in District 12, or he’ll get to visit District 1 and see those diamonds. 

He didn’t even think about it before ‘cause he never expected they’d both be alive, but he don’t like the thought of being half of Panem away from Brock. It feels as unbearable now as dying seemed a couple hours ago. 

If they do real good, make themselves a big hit in the Capitol, in demand, maybe they won’t have to go back. They might be allowed to stay in the Capitol, together. They could get an apartment. One of the blocks in the beautiful skyline they looked at. Be part of the bustle and glamor of the city. Together.

His mom probably won’t just let him run off and live with a boy she don’t know. But at least he ain’t gotta finish school now he’s a victor. Maybe his mom could move with them. She’s too fabulous to waste away in the Seam, just like he is. She can help him pick a talent. 

Maybe Cinna would take him on as an apprentice. He got some fierce ideas for fashions and he can already do basic sewing. 

The crowd outside been cheering their names through the Training Center walls all day. And these are fancy ass Capitol people. All yelling for _him_.

This is his life now. He was made for this. And he’ll get to do it with Brock. 

He can’t believe it.

He shakes President Snow’s hand enthusiastically and wonders what they’re gonna wear to look cute to the party. 

If President Snow wants them cute to meet his important guests, he won’t disappoint. 

When they’re prepped and polished, Brock's mentor Cashmere comes back with her brother, Gloss. 

Jose remembers them both from the Games when he was a little kid.

He had nightmares about Gloss for a while. His mom got mad at his brothers for letting him watch all his kills, said he was too young to see that.

He don’t look so scary now. He looks stern and serious and real strong still. But Jose don’t think anything is gonna scare him much after surviving the Games himself. 

He puffs his chest up but Gloss don’t pay him much attention.

Gloss puts a hand on Brock’s shoulder and tells him firmly to be smart and come downstairs. 

Brock responds obediently like a reflex, head dipping ready to follow him like a trained pet. He ain’t seen Brock respond automatically like that to anyone but him. 

Brock looks at him intently, a look he knows means _I’m coming to knock for you as soon as I’m done with them_ , and that’s the only reason Jose lets them take him.

They put him back in the same room he had before the Games.

His room feels creepily quiet after everything. It’s so high up he can’t even hear the crowd outside. He don’t like being there alone. He sits tense and fidgety until the knock comes. 

Seeing Brock all angelic in the hall light again is some deja vu. 

This time Brock don’t wait, or ask, he comes straight in and hugs Jose tight. 

He exhales when his arms are around him like he been holding his breath since he walked away from him. 

His hands find the bottom of Jose’s sleep shirt and he’s already pulling it up when he asks, “Can I?” and then he’s kissing him the minute it’s over his head. 

He walks them back to the bed like he did that first night. Jose tugs at his shirt. It feels so good to be together, alone, in private again, with Brock all free and soft the way he was before. To get naked and feel their skin touch, warm and _alive_. The balm of every kiss distracts him from all the nasty shit in his brain he don’t wanna think about. 

“Ain’t got nothing,” he gasps between kisses when they’re naked. “I ain’t prepped or…” 

“It’s okay. I just wanna be with you,” Brock nudges his chin and kisses him deeply. 

It’s the softest he’s ever seen Brock. He ain’t pretending to be somebody else right now. He’s soft and pliant in Jose’s arms, and that’s how he likes him best. 

“I love you,” Brock breathes into his mouth, tentative and shy, and he’s overwhelmed with affection for him. 

“Love you too,” he says sweetly, wrapping a leg around his hip to pull him closer. 

They rub up against each other. They don’t wanna stop kissing, now that they can, in comfort, in privacy, it feels so decadent. He wants to start saying everything he had to hold back in the arena but he don’t wanna stop kissing long enough to talk. 

They come on each other’s chests and laugh about it and clean it up and Brock folds him close in his arms, clinging to him like a stuffed animal. 

“Baby, you excited for tomorrow?” He mumbles into the skin of Brock’s shoulder, because that seems like a good place to start.

He feels Brock swallow.

“I’m scared,” he whispers, so unexpected Jose has to look up and check it’s really Brock.

“Of what?” He asks, stroking his side.

“I don’t know,” Brock looks down at him, unsure and overwhelmed. It's weird to see him so open and honest but he likes it. He likes that Brock trusts him with it.

“We gonna be okay,” Jose smiles encouragingly. 

“We done the hard part. Now we just gotta be cute for the cameras and, baby, you know I can do that. And you cute as hell, don’t play. You know I was thirsting over your ass so bad in your last interview. That open jacket? Chil'!” he teases, fanning himself, making Brock smile.

“It just seems too easy. That’s it? We’re just-- okay now?”

He presses his thumb into the frown above Brock’s eyes. 

The boy is too used to doing what he’s told, trying to do shit right. All them Careers talk a big talk but they’re too pampered and coddled, they ain’t prepared for real life shit that ain’t a clear cut structure with an obvious win. They don’t know what it feels like to fly by the seat of your pants and scrape through on your wits and thrive in uncertainty like he do. To just be happy if you’re still alive at the end of the day and be ready when the next hardship comes, ‘cause you don’t gotta get ready when you stay ready. To snatch moments of happiness when you can. 

He don’t know what to say to make Brock feel better though ‘cause he don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow either, so he changes the subject to the question that’s eating at him. 

“What'll we do after this?”

“What do you mean?” Brock blinks and it feels like summer festival when he wanted Ember to ask him to be his boyfriend and Ember thought they were just fucking around. 

He cringes as he tries to word it without seeming presumptuous. 

His happy ass been daydreaming all these grand plans of forevers for them. He got too carried away. He didn’t think to check if Brock was even on the same page. He needs to feel it out.

Brock did just tell him he loves him. 

But a boy being cute in the moment when they just been through crazy shit together is different than a boy following through on it in real life. 

Brock might forget about Jose when he goes back to his fancy District 1 life. 

He gonna have a line of District 1 golden pretty boys waiting for him, when he gets home all tall, hot and victorious. He was probably the most popular boy at his school even before he left. District 1 has had good looking tributes over the years but he doubts they got many boys there cuter than Brock. 

He might already have a boyfriend he left back there waiting for him. He never said but Jose never asked. Too much important shit going on. Now it’s suddenly the most important. 

You’d think he woulda brought it up if he had a boyfriend, but you never know. Sometimes boys be shady.

Jose’s heart pounds and he tries to sound casual.

“I mean after the interviews and the parties and shit, when they send us packing. I guess I’ma drag my ass back to District 12. What you gonna do?”

Brock’s face crumples. 

“Oh. I don’t know. I mean about the future and um-- but-- I thought, like now, that--” he swallows. “I was um-- hoping we could stay together. I mean-- I-- want to be where you are,” he finishes, soft and uncertain.

Tears come to Jose’s eyes. Relief flows warm through him. He realizes how scared he was that Brock wouldn’t say that. 

“Yeah,” he smiles warmly. “Okay, good. Me too. Just checking.”

He darts up and kisses him. Brock smiles back, relieved, and kisses back gently and he feels like he’s floating.

“District 12 is a long way from District 1,” Brock frowns, and rubs his hip. 

“I ain’t gotta go back to 12. Baby, I look like a coal miner?” 

He pouts and the semi-permanent highlight he got Venia to give him shines in the moonlight. Brock giggles.

“I was just saying that. It was never my gig, even before all the shenanigans. Ain’t nothing back there for me except my family. I gotta see them, so my ma can whoop my ass for all the dumb shit I did on TV, but that’s it.”

Brock smiles tentatively. 

“I’m used to not seeing my family. I’ve been boarding at the academy since I was five. I-- I’m sure they’ll want to see me at some point. But it’s not urgent. I don’t mind not seeing them until whenever.”

Jose’s eyebrows jump up. 

“So you wanna come slum it with me in 12?”

Jose gives him a look, trying to picture Brock all golden and glowing in the middle of his District’s town square. 

He’d stand out even among the merchants. He’d hate the clothes and the rations and the small town mentality.

“Um. Not really?” Brock laughs. “I know our victors spend a lot of time in the Capitol. Maybe we could find a way to stay here together.”

Jose beams at the thought of their cute Capitol apartment among the fashionable people where they belong. 

And even more at Brock having the same idea as him. They're perfect for each other.

“Yeah,” he leans up and kisses Brock. “We gonna do that. You gon’ come meet my mama and then we gon’ get us a nice lil’ place right here.” He pouts. “You think I’d look cute with pink hair?” 

Brock laughs at him but then his face gets serious.

“You know it’s not really up to us though, where we live.”

He rolls the pink diamond across Jose's chest. They took it in the prep center but he snatched back as soon as he could. If it's up to him, he ain't never taking it off. Brock plays with it absently, drawing shapes on Jose's chest with the pointy end and following them with his finger. 

“Baby, you spent too long being told what to do at that academy. We the stars now. We can do anything.”

“No one can do _anything_ . Thinking like that will get you killed. Or _worse_ ,” Brock looks pressed, like when he grabbed Jose’s hand all agitated when all Jose was tryna do was give Delly an honorable send off. 

“Ain’t no fool can kill me, baby, you know that. You tried it,” Jose jokes but it falls flat. 

"Don't joke about that, it's not funny," Brock says quietly. 

Jose kisses him. His lips comply but his heart ain't in it. Jose looks at him, trying to tell from his face what's wrong, 'cause he sure don't seem like he's gonna say it.

“C--Cashmere said something,” Brock stutters, so quiet Jose hardly hears him. Brock’s eyes dart around the room all nervous like he thinks they still on TV. 

“What?” He strokes Brock’s curls out of his eyes and looks at him steadily, trying to help him be calm. “What her icy ass say that got you all pressed?”

Brock laughs despite himself but he's frowning deeply.

“It’s not just her, it's-- I don’t know. It was weird. She wouldn’t say exactly. But it was like-- a warning or-- It was weird.” He swallows, and looks around again so intensely he got even Jose wondering if maybe there are cameras hidden in here. 

He scoots closer on the pillow and whispers,

“Gloss told her not to get involved. But she-- she grabbed me--”

“What?!” Jose instantly feels defensive. Who the bitch think she is getting rough with his man? He ain’t just a kid hopeful she can push around no more, he a victor now, same as her. 

“Shh! Not like that. It was like she stared at me-- Like-- She was intense.”

“Baby, no offense, all you chicken heads from District 1 are intense.”

“No, no, this was different-- She-- She said we have to do what we’re told now. No matter what it is. Or-- people could get hurt,” he gets quieter at the end, almost swallowing the last part. 

“Who?” Jose frowns at him. “What we gotta do? The interview?”

Maybe Brock is freaking out worrying they might have to go back to the arena. 

He keeps thinking that too. He wonders how long it’ll take to go away ‘cause it’s annoying as hell.

Or Brock’s mentors might be putting pressure on him to go all Career now and do some District 1 type shit for them ‘cause he’s been acting too cute. He wouldn’t know what it’s like to have a mentor who actually gives a shit about trying to do their job. 

“She just talkin’ shit. Tryna scare you. Haymitch ain’t said nothing.”

“Yeah, but, that doesn't mean anything. Everyone knows your mentor is-- Well, you know-- a drunk.” 

Even though he was just thinking it, Jose automatically feels weirdly defensive of Haymitch. 

“So?”

“So don’t go by what he says. He’s not fit for the job. You know they teach us to kill the kids from 12 first? You’re the easiest way to start racking up kills quickly because none of you know what you’re doing. You, and 3 and 8 because they’re weak from being trained for seated jobs.” 

Brock looks kinda manic. He’s going off track of his point and just shoving his foot in his mouth reciting horrible shit, like he learned it by rote. 

“Plus 3 are too clever to be trusted so you have to take them out fast. And 5 if you can. They can be smart too but they're not as weak. I got the boy though. Oh, wait, and the girl! I did get them," He smiles as though it's a cute memory that he had to run her through when she sneaked up on them and killed Delly.

"10 and 11 are as poor as you but some of them are strong and they have okay mentors. So everyone’s taught to go for you right off the plates. And it’s your mentor’s fault. I mean, besides obvious easy kills like little kids or cripples. Oh, 6 too. Their mentors are cracked out. Most of them are sickly and frail because their parents took morphling--”

“Stop! Stop it! Shut up!” Jose shoves Brock’s chest. “I don’t want your nasty list of who to slice first to get your big dick Career points. I don’t wanna hear how they teach you to kill us. It ain’t cute. It ain't right.”

He rolls away from Brock, to the edge of the bed, and turns his back on his oblivious murdering ass. 

He needs a minute.

He hates that there’s a part of Brock that’s been trained to enjoy the Games, to strategize over it like his personal showcase, totally shut off from emotion about the kids’ lives he takes in the process. 

There’s ways to still wanna be the star of the show and not be cruel about it, do it in a nice way. 

He knows Brock enjoys killing other kids. Kids that aren’t him. He remembers the look in Brock’s eyes after he killed Clove for him, like it was the hottest thing he ever saw. He wishes he didn’t. 

It’s not Brock’s fault. It’s conditioning or whatever fucked up shit they do to the kids in District 1. Just like he’s nice ‘cause his momma gave him a conscience. 

He knows Brock’s sweet inside where they haven’t got to him. Brock’s always been good and respectful with _him._ He ain't never treated him like some faceless easy target from District 12. 

But he hates to hear this disrespectful shit about kids he went to school with and watched die. Blaming it on Haymitch, who is obviously fucked up but he's doing his best. He ain’t gonna lie there and listen to it without popping off and defending them. Ain’t like they can defend themselves.

“Sorry,” Brock says quietly. He paws at Jose’s shoulder. “Sorry, baby.”

He sounds like he wouldn’t hurt a fly now. Why can’t he be like this all the time?

Jose rolls back to face him. Brock scoots closer and tilts Jose’s chin up.

“I was just trying to explain why-- I forget. We’re very different. I’m sorry, baby.”

He looks so subdued with remorse Jose can’t help giving him a little kiss.

“You better be sorry. No more of that shit ‘kay? Unless it’s next year and you helping my kids win.” 

Oh, shit. He shouldn’t think about that if he wants to sleep without nightmares. They gonna get to do so many cool things now, but then there’ll be that. 

Brock might not have to do it. Even though the asshole would probably get a kick out of it. 

But Jose will definitely have to. 

The District 1 victors probably fight over which of their bloodthirsty asses gets to mentor, there’s so many of them, and they all love that shit so much. 

His District only got Haymitch, and he ain’t shit.

He don't like the thought of having to keep the next District 12 tributes alive. He could barely keep _himself_ alive, he scraped by on his fuckshit.

It'll be kids he knows. It could be kids he cares about. 

Even if a miracle happens and he somehow saves one of them, at least one will die.

He don't even like the thought of a new batch of kids from the other Districts dying. His chatty ass spoke to most of the other Districts in the Training Center before the Games and even though they was all stressed they all seemed pretty nice. He don't wanna have to teach District 12 kids how to kill the next ones just 'cause they from another District. 

Brock watches the dread on his face, because he can’t hide an emotion for shit, and starts stroking his eyebrow, like he’s seen him do to himself. He's calmer now, still pressed but taking his turn at comforting as he sees Jose get anxious.

“Look, I don’t know what Cash meant. Maybe it’s nothing. But don’t you think this feels-- off? Like, wrong? All of this.” 

“I know what you mean,” Jose sighs. He puts his chin on Brock’s shoulder, rubs up and down his arm, the rhythm of it soothing them both. 

“I think it’s stress. When I been--” he catches himself before he says too much and makes himself look like a sad sack charity case in front of the rich boy he got a crush on. 

“I was in situations before where I got real scared and stressed. And shit felt weird then. Like everything was scary.” 

Brock frowns at District 12 on his behalf. 

“It wasn't exactly like this. But I ain’t been this stressed before. I think it’ll go away.”

Brock don’t look convinced.

“It’s just-- if it’s not _us_ , maybe Cash meant like-- our families and stuff. Like-- your mom,” Brock looks so worried for her and they ain’t even met yet. He so cute. She better love him. 

“Baby, we okay. We made it. Everyone loves us. It’s all gonna be good now. We earned it.”

He kisses Brock to distract him from paranoid thoughts. 

“The only reason you gotta worry about my momma is she gonna wanna move in with us and do our hair for all our TV spots. Flavius better watch out, she coming for his gig!” He jokes, nudging Brock, but Brock barely smiles. 

Brock don’t believe they can get whatever they want, but he ain’t used to making miracles happen like Jose is. 

“We the stars now. They can’t tell us shit. If we wanna stay in the Capitol together, we will. We just gotta make ‘em let us. We gonna do real good at the President’s party tomorrow. Make ‘em all real happy. Right?” his eyes sparkle up at Brock.

“We gonna do so good they don’t wanna let us leave.”

Brock chews on his lip, his expression distant. Jose nudges him. 

“Brock, right?”

“Right. Yeah. We will.”

He don’t know why Brock sounds so uneasy ‘bout it. 

Jose wakes up screaming. He don’t remember falling asleep. Brock blinks at him in the dark.

“Sorry. Bad dream,” he croaks, catching his breath.

They were back in the arena and he shot at Clove frantically to save Brock but when the arrows hit she became Brock instead. He slumped forward all splattered with blood from the holes in his body, looking like she did. And Delly Cartwright watched it all and yelled at him for leaving her in there.

“It’s okay, come here,” Brock says softly and reaches for him. 

He scoots into him. He’s damp with cold sweat and by the look of the blankets he’s been kicking. 

Brock envelopes him in his arms and the warm skin of his chest smells like safety. 

“I can’t sleep,” Brock murmurs, pointy chin on his head. 

Jose tips back to look up at him. 

“You been up all night?”

“Mmhmm,” Brock shrugs. “It happens sometimes” He swallows. “But this is the worst it’s been.”

Maybe he ain’t so heartless. 

Jose don’t know what to say so he scoots up til he can reach his mouth and kisses him. Brock sighs against his lips and strokes his back.

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

Their foreheads rest together until Brock becomes one big beautiful eye in the dark. 

“You too,” he squeezes him tight. “Dunno if I could do it without you.”

He turns in Brock’s arms and Brock kisses the back of his neck, draws him close against his chest, arm wrapped around him, guarding against the nightmares like a safety belt. 

Jose snuggles down, yawning, tracing Brock’s arm hair. 

But when he closes his eyes Brock has two holes in his chest and neck.

He turns back around and feels for those places on Brock in the dark, runs his fingers over them, to show his stupid brain it ain’t real. Brock hums softly under his fingertips.

“You know you wriggling and tickling isn’t helping me fall asleep,” Brock mumbles dryly above him. He snickers.

“Want me to talk to you ‘til you fall asleep?” Jose half-yawns. He might not last long, but he don’t mind trying. Especially now they’re all alone with no cameras and Brock loves him.

“Oh, no, please. Put me back in the arena,” Brock jokes softly, making Jose nudge him with his knee for being shady. 

“I’m joking,” Brock says with a smile in his voice, catching his hip. “You can try. Talk to me. Tell me what to say in our interview tomorrow to be as likeable as you.”

Jose grins up at him.

"We got this," he says to Brock, squeezing his hand tight as they wait to be called on stage.

The applause is deafening when they step out. He tucks himself under Brock's arm and poses cutely for the flashes of photos, smiling as wide as he can. He glances up quick to check Brock's okay and he's doing great, pouting and smizing, feeling his glamorous model fantasy. Relief uncurls in Jose's chest and he smiles wider. 

The interview starts out good. He snatches the mic from Caesar right away, as a joke, and they eat it up. He starts walking backwards says,

"What I tell you? I'm coming, bitch. Walked my ass all the way back outta that arena _and_ I got a man!" and everyone screams.

They show some highlights of the Games and he tries to provide fun commentary, looking away at Brock when they show stuff he don't wanna watch. Brock is kinda stiff but he smiling and looking hot, saying all the right things, tryna avoid answering anything personal and bring it back to making himself look like the hot tough guy. 

"Brock, this must be amazing for you. Did you ever imagine you'd find love in the arena?"

"I--," Brock laughs awkwardly. "Well, I trained to win. And I did win, so yes, I'm-- happy with what I did in the arena. It was amazing. And Jose is great," he adds, like an afterthought, squeezing his knee. 

It's going pretty well and then Caesar says, 

"So. Let's really get into it. The love story on everyone's lips. Let's take a look at how the Games brought you two together." 

And they play some clips of them and Jose's smile freezes on his face. 

_"I like you."_

It's Brock, pushing into his room and kissing him, the first night. 

His mouth drops open and his heart starts racing. _There were cameras. They filmed them._

There's a compilation of kissing, Brock's arms around him on the rooftop and they do look like what he always pictured an old movie would be but his brain is slow with shock as he tries to understand why they're doing this to them. 

They show their first time. They filmed it all. It's huge on the screen. Brock giggling soft and sweet and Jose looking up at him like he's everything and the two of them awkwardly figuring out which position is gonna work, trying a couple times to get it in because it doesn't work at first.

His mom will be watching this in the town square. His _brothers_. Everyone he went to school with. It ain't a careful angle in some dark cave, it's up there clear as day in that bright ass room with its artificial light.

He wants to run back to District 12 and hide under his bed and never come out.

They show them in the arena. The camera zooms in on their pinky fingers and catches moments where they were looking at each other and it's so weird. 

That camera in the cave _was_ fancy enough to get a clear picture.

Not that it matters now, with all this. 

They show them kissing in his room again after the Games, thinking they were finally alone, and Brock says "I love you," so gentle and raw with affection, because he thought it was safe, he thought it was just them.

The clips end and his hands are sweating and he don't know what to do. He looks up at Brock and he's frozen with shock. He should nudge him so he can get it together but it don't even matter. His tough guy act has really gone up in fucking flames now.

Jose feels like shit himself but it must be worse for him. He flushes with rage for Brock, for both of them.

Nothing was private, nothing was just theirs, and Brock has stopped working next to him. He looks like Jose feels, all shut down. If they broke Brock and this fucks things up with the only boy who's ever been this nice to him, he's gonna lose it.

How could they do this to them? They supposed to be heroes, and this is how they treat them? He's used to life being not fair, but it still manages to surprise him how mean this is.

"How was it, getting to watch all that back?" Caesar asks, beaming at them, and the audience hold their breath for a cute answer.

Jose feels like he's falling, his mind races, and he knows he gotta answer because Brock is even more numb with horror. He pulls his mouth into a smile.

"Caesar, you doing us dirty with those clips!" he yells, and the audience laughs. "Outside the arena, we didn't know the cameras was there." 

"Really?" Caesar makes a face like he's being silly, like he couldn't possibly not have known, and he feels like a idiot, but everyone's watching so he smiles wider.

"What you think?! We thought it was sneakily, but you got us!" The audience cheers. "My momma gonna whoop my ass! Watch out, she'll be coming for you next, showing all these people!" he jokes. They all laugh again, like they don't get it's wrong to be watching that shit.

If he was a year younger it wouldn't even be legal for them to look at it. But even if he and Brock were a hundred years old, it wouldn't never be right, recording them and playing it to everyone like that, without their consent. 

His hand is sweating like crazy but Brock's is cold and still against his. 

"Brock, how do you feel, watching that back?" Caesar grins at him. He's either fucked up evil or fucking stupid, sat there grinning his face off. 

Brock opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He looks at Jose, panicked. 

"He gets shy about the cute stuff," Jose bumps his shoulder against Brock's and leans in to Caesar like he's a friend, not a traitor.

"You know these boys. He wanna be a tough guy, you saw the tapes, slicing and dicing, all of that. He don't wanna admit the sweet shit out in the open, but y'all know he loves me." 

The audience awws and when Caesar keeps pressing him, Brock manages to croak out, "Um--Yeah. I do."

Caesar chuckles at them and Jose wants to slap his face, wants to throw a tantrum and smack every person who made that tape of them and yell at the audience that it's private and they been violated. They didn't know. He can hear Brock hyperventilating next to him, his chest starts rising and falling fast and he tries to hide it. His thumb makes frantic circles on Jose's palm.

He digs his nails into Brock's hand to give him something to focus on so he don't pass out. Brock squeezes back, hard. He can tell from the panic in Brock's eyes if the audience sees him any weaker he about to march back in the arena and ask them to shoot the arrows. And everyone's just watching and laughing at this shit like it's entertainment, like they're entitled to it.

But keeping it cute kept him alive, and beloved, and is gonna get him his TV shows, his _real_ TV shows where he can be a star and ain't gotta watch his most private and upsetting moments and smile about them like they're nothing.

So he keeps it cute, because it's the only choice he got. 

"We really wanna thank y'all. We never woulda met without the Games and without y'all we'd probably still be in there yelling at them arrows. So thank you. We appreciate y'all, we really do." 

The cheers are deafening again. He looks out at the crowd and he spots President Snow in a corner, looking pleased.

He gets a bad vibe again and this time he got more of an understanding why. Shit. Brock was right. 

"So, what's next for you two?" 

"Well, we got our Victory Tour coming up. Make sure y'all come out, we excited to meet you, right boo?" he nudges Brock, who has got his breathing under control and gone silent and numb, just about keeping the look of terror off his face but not managing a smile. 

"Yep," Brock says tightly. 

"And after that we dunno yet! We talking about some things, making some plans. Watch this space baby. We looking forward to it. You know, we just happy to be here." 

He keeps smiling and wishes that was still true. 

When they get off stage Brock is stiff and silent, like they turned him to marble. Jose keeps squeezing his hand 'cause he gotta do something so he won't start yelling at nobody. He ain't never in his life tried to stop himself popping off if he really needed to but now he's scared to.

If this is what happens when they being good, he don't wanna find out what would happen if he let himself go off and say everything he's feeling inside. The image of President Snow standing in the crowd smiling keeps flashing in his mind. 

He can feel Brock trying to send calm energy his way, squeezing his hand back.

Haymitch is there to escort them back to the Training Center. He offers Jose his bottle again and his eyes look so sad and Jose finally gets it. 

He thinks about how everyone in his District knows Haymitch don't got no family, and how weird that is now he thinks about it, for somebody from District 12. His blood runs cold and he wonders what happened. And he can't even ask. He can't say shit. Their cameras could be anywhere.

It's not a suspicion now, he knows: they're always watching.

He shakes his head at the bottle and tries to tell Haymitch with his eyes that he gets it now and he's sorry for whatever happened to him when he was in Jose's shoes that made him like this. He wonders if Haymitch can tell.

When they get back to the Center to change Haymitch don't even pretend to care about Brock going up to his room with him.

Gloss tries to stop Brock and Haymitch snorts and puts his arm in front of Gloss. 

"For fuck's sake, leave it. You know what this is like. Stop being such a kiss ass and at least let them have each other."

Brock looks at Haymitch like he's seeing him for the first time. 

"Thank you," he says, quiet and suddenly respectful of him.

When the door closes behind them Brock stretches and clears his throat.

"I'm really sweaty," he says, unnaturally loud. "I'm going to shower. Come with me?"

He drags Jose by the wrist to the bathroom with him. He turns the shower spray on and it casades loud around them, echoing off the tiles. He strips off, gets in and pulls Jose close under the pounding water, curling around him. 

"What are we gonna do?" he breathes in Jose's ear, voice shaky with fear.

"Don't know," Jose whispers back, catching on to why Brock made them get in the shower and hoping it will be enough to keep this private.

"I knew there would be something, but I didn't think it would be this bad. That was so bad. I can't believe everybody saw--" Brock chokes off in a sob.

"I know," Jose says and holds him tighter.

Jose strokes his shoulders, down his back, feeling bad, wishing he could do something to make him feel better. He _hates_ feeling powerless. Hates feeling guilty, that he probably made all this shit worse playing up to the cameras, practically begging them to follow them. Brock did it too, Brock kind of started this whole thing between them, but that don't make it better.

"Do you wish you just killed me?" he asks sadly, feeling stupid he didn't work it all out sooner, wishing he could save the boy he likes from this shit he got them into by being so damn likeable. 

Brock looks like he's really thinking about it and Jose's heart thuds.

"No," Brock says softly, frowning, and pulls him closer. He kisses the side of Jose's head and Jose freezes, wondering if kissing will make the cameras try harder to find them and hear them in here.

Wrapped up in Brock's gorgeous strong body, his heart sinks wondering how they ever gonna have sex again without everybody seeing it. How they can even talk to each other without it being a performance, for everybody else. 

They might as well have taken Brock away from him, or never let them leave the arena, because it feels like it's all over. Their lives ain't theirs no more.

Haymitch is waiting on the bed, making them jump, when they open the shower room door.

"President Snow wants to see you," he says flatly. Cashmere is next to him, smoothing out a set of Brock's clothes on the bed. 

Before Jose can even draw a breath to ask why or complain about them just barging in Haymitch adds, "I don't know what it's about, so don't ask. He gave an address, he wants you there."

Brock nods and walks automatically to the clothes laid out for him, like a well behaved robot. 

Haymitch glares at Jose until he follows, and picks up his own clothes. 

"I don't think I need to tell you it's in your best interest to do as he says," Haymitch mutters. "I know you, you'll make your own decisions. But don't say we didn't warn you. He ain't someone you wanna try. Trust me." 

Cashmere nods her head in sharp agreement next to him and Brock, nearly dressed, looks at Jose and says, "We understand."

Jose don't say nothing 'cause he knows if he opens his mouth it'll be something that could get him in trouble.

He kicks the bed and Haymitch mutters, "I know," all kind and understanding and he wants to cry. He snatches Haymitch's bottle before they leave and takes a sip. It tastes disgusting but at least the burn in his throat is distracting. 

They get taken to a hallway somewhere in the middle of the Capitol and President Snow is waiting with a set of keys. 

"Good. Very good," he says when he sees them. 

It feels like it takes an eternity for him to unlock the door. Jose's mind races trying to guess what's on the other side of it. His whole body hums with fear and apprehension.

Brock nudges his body in front of him, doing his subconscious protective don't touch my man shit, and it makes him smile even with everything. He wraps his arms around Brock's waist and presses his smile into his shoulder. He peeks out from behind Brock.

The door swings open and reveals....a beautifully furnished apartment. 

Jose is so confused he pushes ahead of both of them to look inside. It's gorgeous, modern and cool. He wonders who lives there. 

"You know we've been listening to you, so I'll cut to the chase," President Snow's cold voice makes him jump and turn around.

Brock lurks half way inside, looking around curiously, eyes darting to Jose every couple seconds as though something is gonna jump out and attack him the second he stops to appreciate the plush grey corner sofa, or the marble kitchen island, or the city view. 

"So. Here's your deal," President Snow says, smiling unpleasantly. "You can have your _cute little Capitol apartment,"_ Jose feels a chill as the President quotes him. "As long as you play by my rules." 

He holds up the keys he just opened the door with and holds them out to Jose and Brock. 

Jose looks at them, and around the gorgeous place they're in. There's a huge floor to ceiling window right in front of them with a balcony looking over the entire Capitol skyline. It's stunning. He can see through an open door that the bedroom has _two_ huge closets.

"Ultimately it's not really your choice. We have ways of making you cooperate no matter what you choose to do. But as you're smart, and understand the Game so well, I thought I'd give you the chance to decide how you'd like to play." 

Jose looks at Brock. President Snow jingles the keys in his hand. 

"So. Will you play nice with me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have to end there because I can’t be writing a whole trilogy but given context clues you can imagine the rest!


End file.
